Quotessence
Home / Authors / Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes Quotes

Poet

Filter quotes by topic

AllPoetryAfrican AmericansBlacksRacePoemRacismRace RelationsDreamPeopleAmericaIfsBlackKnowsHarlem RenaissancePovertyWorldStillsWhiteDemocracyFall

Famous Langston Hughes Quotes

“Writing is the urge to tell folks about it. About what? About what hurts you inside. Colored folks, through the sheer fact of being colored, have got plenty hurting them inside. You see, we, too, are one of those minority races the newspapers are always talking about. Except that we are here in America, not in Europe, fourteen million of us--a rather large minority, but still a minority. Now, what's hurting us? Well, Jim Crow is hurting us. Ghettos, and segregation, and lack of jobs is hurting us. Signs up: COLORED TRADE NOT DESIRED, and dirty names such as the Jews know under Hitler hurt us. So those of us who are writers have plenty to tell the world about. To us democracy is a paradox, full of contradictions.”

WritingWorkDemocracyRacismTraumaMinoritiesAfrican AmericansBlacksSegregation
Book:Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings
Create image

“What I mean is, you should not have to have a business in a Jewish neighborhood to be interested in Jewish problems, or own a spaghetti stand to be interested in Italians, or a bar to care about the Irish. In a democracy, everybody's problems are related, and it's up to all of us to help solve them." "If I did not have a business reason to be interested in their business," said Simple, "then what business would I have being interested in their business?" "Just a human reason," I said. "It's all human business." "Maybe that is why they don't join the N.A.A.C.P.," said Simple. "Because they do not think a Negro is human.”

BusinessDemocracyEmpathyRacismUnityProblemsAfrican AmericansBlacksNaacp
Book:The Return of Simple
Create image