The Idea of an Essay, Volume 4

2017 Composition Contest Winnners 13 with many dark writings preserved and addressed to his patroness (xxiv). Accordingly, there exists past this point no further record, letter, or recounting of any singular individual to ever effect Langston Hughes so deeply. It is curious to mention, and perhaps important to note, he is never known to take a lover, marry, or court any woman (Anderson). While speculation may abound concerning the implications of his previous fraught paternal relationships, and otherwise non-existent ones, it is no doubt they took their toll. What has blossomed then is a man who knows rejection, and so cares for the dejected; those seemingly despised he takes up their cause and becomes their advocate. This advocacy for African- Americans became the parliament of his life. Where before he extolled the virtue of the African-American, now he demanded their recognition. Yet, bound to this only cause, he often failed to consider the bigger implications in his sole effort to establish and legitimize African-Americans. This demonstrates itself during the middling part of his writing career. Hughes, who now was an established writer, became a large, vocal proponent of communism.This involvement fluctuated going from the spokesperson for Communist Party affiliates to eventually bowing out as it negatively impacted his readership; then coming to a head again when he was investigated by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in effect, meant to persecute communist sympathizers in the U.S. All that was known initially concerning the outcome of this trial on Hughes’ part was public denunciation of communism, years later records revealed that in a private recess with government officials he passionately defended communism, “lecturing the subcommittee” before being reprimanded (Whalan). What made Hughes recant was a trumped- up threatening charge of perjury for advocating communism while stating under oath he was not a communist. This is an excellent case of Hughes desire for African- Americans blinding him from thinking critically. This isn’t to say that purely because Hughes supported communism that he was short-sighted, rather that it was only a means to an end for him, stating, “I never read the theoretical books of socialism or communism . . . [but my views were] largely emotional and born out of my own need.” Fundamentally, he saw it from only one angle: It ensured that everyone, whites and blacks, were on equal terms of