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How did Langston Hughes describe the goals of new Black artists in The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain?

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Phillis Wheatley's first book of poetry — African American literature Frontispiece and title page of *Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral* (1773) by Phillis Wheatley, the first Black woman to become a poet of note in the United States. The portrait on which the frontispiece's engraving is based is often attributed to Scipio Moorhead, an Black artist and writer who, like Wheatley, was enslaved and living in Boston.

In his 1926 manifesto, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," Langston Hughes articulated a bold vision for a new generation of Black artists. He declared that these younger creators intended to express their "individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame," emphasizing a commitment to artistic authenticity that transcended the approval of white audiences.12

Hughes argued that Black artists should strive to create a distinctive "Negro" art, actively combating what he termed the "urge within the race toward whiteness". His manifesto championed the beauty of Black identity—including its complexities and "ugliness"—and asserted that the artist's primary duty was to remain true to their own cultural heritage and aesthetic sensibilities, regardless of whether that work pleased white or Black critics. By focusing on the "folk" and the experiences of the Black masses, Hughes sought to establish a foundation for African American literature that was independent of white traditions and rooted in the lived reality of Black life.312