You see, unfortunately, I am not black. There are lots of different kinds of blood in our family. But here in the United States, the word Negro is used to mean anyone who has any Negro blood at all in his veins. In Africa, the word is more pure. It means all Negro, therefore black. I am brown. My father was a darker brown. My mother an olive-yellow.

The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, V. 13, The Big Sea, Publisher: University of Missouri, 2002, p. 36, ISBN 082621410X. - The Big Sea (1940)