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Langston Hughes: A Writer's Influence

© Linda Sue Grimes

In his autobiography, The Big Sea, Langston Hughes takes his readers on a journey through his life. He narrates many adventures on his way to becoming a writer, and he proves that a writer can influence his world. He shows that the old adage, "The pen is mightier than the sword," is a fact.

At Lincoln University where he had studied for almost fours, Hughes became aware of a great injustice and contradiction in policy. Lincoln University had an all black student body and an all white faculty. The mission of the university was supposed to be to prepare black leaders. But by refusing to hire black faculty, the administration implied that blacks were incapable of leadership even after Lincoln University had prepared them. Hughes saw this inequity and tried to remedy it.

During his senior year, Hughes was required to write a paper on some phase of American life for his sociology class. He decided to do a survey of his campus. He included trivial issues like dorm food, living conditions, and social activities, but his real purpose was to find out how other students viewed the contradiction of the color line at Lincoln.

His survey revealed that, as he suspected, students were hardly being prepared to be self-reliant and strong leaders, but dependent and subservient to the white establishment that supported the school. He found that 63% of the upper class preferred a white faculty for various reasons; some students felt that since the college depended upon whites for financial support, whites should serve as faculty and board of trustee members. Some believed that black faculty would exhibit favoritism toward the students and unfairness would result. Others claimed that there simply were no capable black professors. Three students said they did not like blacks; two felt black professors would not have the interest of the student at heart. And one student claimed that blacks were not morally capable. Remember that these are all black students offering reasons why their university should not have blacks on the faculty!

In his paper Hughes recorded the results of his survey and the following evaluation: ". . . it seems to me the height of absurdity for an institution designed for the training of Negro leadership to support and uphold, on its own grounds, the unfair and discriminatory practices of the American color line." He also claimed that, based on the number of students against black faculty and their reasons for not desiring a racially-mixed faculty, "the college has failed in instilling in these students the very quality of self-reliance and self-respect which any capable American leader should have." He then cited the success of other universities, Fisk for example, with mixed faculties, and he ended by calling for change.

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