Langston Hughes - Black Quotes

13 Sourced Quotes

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That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we black are wise.
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes.

Langston Hughes
I am a Negro:
Black as the night is black,
Black like the depths of my Africa.

Langston Hughes
Rest at pale evening...
A tall slim tree...
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.

Langston Hughes
We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.

Langston Hughes
'It's powerful,' he said.
'What?'
'That one drop of Negro blood—because just one drop of black blood makes a man coloured. One drop—you are a Negro!'

Langston Hughes
Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.

Langston Hughes
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.

Langston Hughes
Negro blood is sure powerful — because just onedrop of black blood makes a colored man. One drop—you are a Negro!... Black is powerful.

Langston Hughes
No matter how belligerent or lewd their talk was, or how sordid the tales they told—of dangerous pleasures and strange perversities—these black men laughed.... No matter how hard life might be, it was not without laughter.

Langston Hughes
A world I dream where black or white, whatever race you be, will share the bounties of the earth and every man is free

Langston Hughes
Everybody should take each other as they are, white, black, Indians, Creole. Then there would be no prejudice, nations would get along.

Langston Hughes
To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening...
A tall, slim tree...
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.

Langston Hughes
I have been worrying as long as I have been black. Since I have to be black a long time yet, what is the sense of so much worriation?

Langston Hughes