Sylvester's Dying Bed.

Intro :

• October 1931 in the issue of Poetry Magazine.• Artists wanted to glorify the common “Negro”.• “Shadows of the blues” → theme of death, a blues story.

I) Point of view.

• Not Hughes's voice (≠ “I” in other poems), but the inner voice of a common black man.• Black vernacular → grammar mistakes/ creative grammar + shortening of words →

southern accent → a rhythm. • Sylvester → his nickname :“Sweet papa Vester”. He seems to be like by every one (family ;

friends ; neighbor) → he's affectionate → he hugs his children // he's loved by them. He loves women, young or old → “Sweet gals” // “pretty mama's”. He's a good happy man ; a simple man but with a lot of honor when confronted to his death.

II) Theme of Death.

• Involving mood from chaotic to peaceful → from the beginning to line 16, the speaker recounts the amount of chaos going on around him → women are gathered around Sylvester, crying and begging for him to stay alive. They are hysterical over the man's death, while the undertaker is right at the door.While this is happening, Sylvester is sleeping and awakens for brief moments.What Sylvester feels → Sylvester knows his “time's a-comin” but he doesn't seem sad or distressed.

• The description of his death is also quite calm, he describes it as the moment when “The Lawd put out the light” → painless, simple → or sense of peaceful or painless passing.

• Last stanza, ellipses → 3 dots → causes the reader to read the words very slowly // slowing of the heart beat.

• Rhymes “right” / “light” ≠ absence of rhymes at the beginning (chaos).

Conclusion : Death is the great fear of the man. Hughes tries to show it through this man who dies little by little.

The Weary Blues.

Intro :

• Appeared in his first collection of poems, The Weary Blues, 1925. It won a prize from Opportunity Magazine. The title comes from a 1915 tune by Artic Mathews.

• Harlem culture → clubs/ cabarets in Harlem → black performers, white audience → excitement for black music.

• This 35 line poem deals with a blues singer and his song in relation to the speaker of the poem.

• Situation in the collection → “Shadows of the blues”.

I) The setting.

• Harlem/ Cotton Club (Lenox Avenue).• Late at night (“far into the night”) until down (“stars went out […] moon”).

II) The blues-man.

• He works at night → he sleeps during the day → a night person → as if he were dead during the day. He's exhausted → exploitation?

• He's got rhymes in his blood → “Thump thump thump” ; “Swaying to lazy sway”.• “A crooner” (Anonymous → one of many) → Sings and plays popular standards on his

piano (sentimental, emotional singing style).

III) The blues.

• Definition → from the Deep South, from spiritual ; work songs + blue devils → melancholy sadness.

• He integrates the lyrics of an old blues → theme of unhappiness.• Lexical field of sadness → “coming from a black man's soul” → suffering of black people

at the basis of black music “O Blues/ Sweet Blues”.

Conclusion : It is a tribute to a black man who, like much of others, carried out a difficult life, a life of death-alive. He knew the largest asperities.

Trumpet Player.

Intro :

• 1947.• Importance of music in black culture → influence of blues on Harlem ; importance to

understand black soul.• Harlem Renaissance → nightlife in clubs – black soul.• Hughes observes a trumpet player.• The link between the black musician and his music.• Situation in the collection → “After Hours”.

I) What the musician brings to the music?

1) Slavery/ stanza 1.

• “Moons of weariness” → tired of suffering ; he bears the scars/ rings of African American past.

• “Slave ships” + “whips”/ “crack” → trauma of the middle passage.

2) Stanza 2.

• His African hair used to be “vibrant” but they were “tamed” to look like European style hair. They use wax that's why it “gleams” and looks like “patent-leather” or jet.

• This physical transformation is symbolical of both their forced submission and the process of forgetting their origins.

3) Stanza 4 – Desire and melancholy.

• The desire for freedom (“see”) + desire to escape from reality (“moon”) → “old desire” → unfulfilled desire/ shared with ancestors black.

• The reality of the club is present : “spotlight” + “bar-glass”.

II) What the music brings to the musician?

1) It acts like a drug (to forget reality/ to escape his suffering).

• Metaphor with alcohol → “liquid fire distilled”.• Metaphor with drugs → “needle” + “ecstasy”.

2) Soothing effect.

• “Honey” ; “Mellows” ; “Softly”.

3) Stanza 6.

• “Comes from his throat” → he evacuates his sorrows (“trouble”).

Conclusion : It works 2 way. He produces the “golden note” → blue note? Perfect note?(In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note sung or played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes.)

Song for Billie Holiday.

Intro :

• Billie Holiday ; blues singer ; 1915 → 1959 ; life full of tragedies → raped, worked as a prostitute and cleaning woman in Harlem brothels, she went a prison, and decided to turn to music to make living.She used her life experience to express the pain and melancholy of the blues + her sensual voice.

• She influenced many artists, including Hughes who loved blues.• In this poem (in 1949), he explores the blues form in poetry and pays tribute to Billie

Holiday. • Situation in the collection → “Distance Nowhere”.

I) Blues song.

1) Repetition of 3 questions with a play on words which suggest on chair reaction about the effect of song on the listener.

• 1st question → the song makes us sad.• 2nd question → the song is the antidote to sadness.• 3rd question → Hughes wants to purge the sadness from the song.

2) Poem // blues song → repetitions give its rhythm to the poem.

• Identification give its musicality to the poem.• Theme of sorrow.

II) Billie Holiday as a blues woman.

1) Hair + eyes with dust → make-up + smoke in the club. → fake emotions/ “sorrow”.

2) “Despair” (from her past life experience) → genuine emotions.

3) Stanza 3.

• References to the instruments in the band : “trumpet” + “bass” → blues music.• “Bitter” ; “blurred” → bad performances of drug abuse.• “Where?” → maybe he's worried about her future.

Conclusion : Langston Hughes takes as a starting point an artist who was in the middle of the difficulties that the blacks had. Billie Holiday sings the Blues ; Hughes loves the blues, the poet

pays tribute to this woman who had a tragic destiny.

Blues actsas catharsis

Daybreak in Alabama.

Intro :

• A nostalgic song about where he grew up.• → many blacks left the South during the Great Migration to go North. Alabama lost half of

its black population between 1910-1920.• → Hughes came from Kansas but he imagines himself to be an artist who left Alabama.• Situation in the collection → “Magnolia Flowers”.

I) What he misses about Alabama?

1) geography → landscape, vegetation, climate.

• “Tall tall trees” + “pine needles” → pine trees.• Humid subtropical climate → a lot of “rain” falls/ “mist”/ “dew”.• “Red clay earth”.

2) People.

• Of all races : “black” ; “white” ; “brown” ; “yellow”.• Warm people : “touch” + “kind” + juxtaposition of adjectives “black” “white” “black”.

3) Sensual evocation.

• “Smell”, “scent” → a pleasant smell.• “Touching” → physical contact with people (“fingers” ; “hands” ; “soft”).• Hearing/ sound → “(purtiest) songs”.• Sight/ vision → hot colors : red, yellow, brown.• No taste.

II) To what extend it is an idealized evocation?

1) Exaggeration.

• Beauty “purtiest” (superlative). “tall tall trees”.

• Endless list of good memories (13 × “and”).• Flowers + “daisy” give an image of innocence → a naive vision.

2) No problem between people.

• “Natural as dew” → simple relations.• A multicultural community without racism.

multiracial• Denial of racial problems in the South.

racial violence• → That's why many blacks left the South.

Conclusion : There were many migrations, like that in Alabama. The poet daydreams of a perfect place, because he was lost in the horror.

Southern Mammy Sings. Intro :

• For a long time, the Afro-Americans were the servants of the whites.• There has been much suffering. • To be completely free is the aspiration of each man. • Situation in the collection → “Magnolia Flowers”.

I) Who? To whom?

1) Who?

• Not the poet → he gives voice to an old black woman who lives in the South.• She speaks with a Southern accent : “m'am” ; “Lawd” (→ Lord).• Non educated → grammar mistakes : “ain't”.• “I” → “We” → she speaks on behalf of all black people.

2) To whom?

• To a white woman → probably her boss.• She fears her → “not meanin' to be sassy”, or she's ill-at-ease, uncomfortable when she

express her opinion about white people.

II) When and Where?

1) Where?

• In the South during the segregation. • At her boss's house.• Probably in the garden because she can see what the (white) neighbors are doing.

2) When?

• Probably a Sunday morning → all stanza 1 + “mass”.

III) What?

• She sings a song. a gospel : “Lawd”. a blues : “I'm getting tired”.→ Physically tired because of her work.→ Psychologically tired because of her suffering → she relates that an innocent boy was lynched and hung by the KKK.

→ Desire for freedom for the black people : “we all should be free”.→ Repetition of the last 2 lines of each 2 stanzas + exclamation marks “!”.

Conclusion : At this period the Ku Klux Klan was in activity and killed a large number of people, in particular the blacks.

Afro-American Fragment.

Intro :

• Author → an aspect related to the poem → first time African-American wanted to admit some connection with (roots/ racial/ pride) Africa.

• Harlem Renaissance → an aspect related to the poem.• Published in 1959.• Main theme of the poem → the question of Africa descent. • Situation in the collection → “Afro-American Fragments”.

I) Atavistic yearnings for Africa.

• “So long” → distance in time (slave trade)/ “So far away” → geographical distance.• Consequence → Black people forget their African roots (“not even memories alive”).• They've learned about Africa in books only. • But African still runs in their blood. • “beat” → heart beat (repetition of “b” sounds) + black music.• “Words sad-sung” → work songs (slavery).• Africa's “dark face” → skin color [literal meaning]

mysterious/ unconscious [figurative meaning]• African-American have been cut from their roots.

Yearnings → desire to know your roots.• “bitter” ; “lost” ; “without” → frustration, unfulfilled desire.• + “strange un-Negro tongue”.

II) Form and fragmentation.

• Hughes uses metaphors in this poem to allow readers to understand the disturbance that the poet feels about the ignorance of people losing involvement in the history of Africa.

• In lines 15 and 16 : “Through some vast mist of race, there comes this song.” He uses a metaphor here to compare a song to a race.

• Hughes uses repetition in lines 1-3, 10-12 and 20-22, all saying the same thing : "So long, / So far away, / Is Africa".

• In lines 14 and 23, a repetition : "Through some vast mist of race [...] Dark face". • In lines 15 and 20, a repetition : "There comes this song [...] So long". • A lot of alliterations, in lines 5, 6, 7 and 8 : "Save those that history books create / Save

those that songs / Beat back into the blood- / Beat out of blood with words sad-sung". • Personification in lines 22 and 23 : "Is Africa's / Dark face", obviously, since Africa is a

continent there is no way it can have a face. It also may refer to that Africa's people have a dark face.

• Hughes uses parallelism in lines 5 and 6 : "Save those that history books create, / Save those that songs..".

Conclusion : Africa is far away because it's an other continent. Also far away in time. We forget their roots in Africa.

DEEP SELF

Negro.

Intro :

• In this poem, Langston Hughes identifies himself as a representative of black race. He becomes all the African-Americans, and retrace their trek through the countries.

• This poem summarizes well the claims of Harlem Renaissance, in particular the need for affirming a black identity on the artistic level, what Hughes does through the rhythm of this poem, inspired of the jazz and the blues which emerge at the time.

• Published in 1922.• Section : “Afro-American Fragments”.

I) Identity.

• The title “Negro” → negritude. Black man + African diaspora.

• “I” ; he speaks on behalf of Black people. • His roots → black life → his skin → life of color comes from.• “My” shows he cherishes Mother Africa.

II) The history of Black people.

• Stanza 2 → slavery from the ancient times to the beginnings of America ;“Washington”.• Stanza 3 → “a worker”, a laborer, he belongs to the working class. He is proud that his

people contributed to the building of pyramids in Egypt or more recently of the “Woolworth Building”.

III) Structure.

• 6 stanzas, each composed of 3 verses, except stanza 4 composed of 4 verses.• Each first stanza starts by “I” (anaphora).The first and last stanzas are identical “I am a

negro [...] Africa” whereas the 4 others start by “I’ve been” : relation past /present with the present perfect.

• Each second and third lines are present to attenuate bad ideas of the firsts.• Hughes identifies himself by saying :"I am a Negro". • He describes the works of the Negro by using the terms "slave" ; "worker" ;"singer" and

"victim". • The first example is a situation that has taken place in Africa, the second in the United

States. • Hughes uses repetition in the first and last stanzas to begin and conclude his poem.

Conclusion : To conclude, I finish with a quotation of Langston Hughes which sums up perfectly the poem → "I knew only the people I had grown up with, and they weren't people whose shoes

were always shined, who had been to Harvard, or who had heard Bach"

The Negro Speaks of Rivers.

Intro :

• 1st published in 1921 in The Crisis, a magazine founded by W.E.B Du Bois in 1910.• Then appeared in his first collection of poems : The Weary Blues which won him acclaim.• It figures in the 1st section "Afro-American Fragments" which deal with African roots and

Africa as a source of racial pride.

I) Rivers and Afro-American identity.

• The Nile, the African river, and the Mississippi, the American river, reconstitute the double identity of Afro-Americans + the color of the river.

• Title → "The Negro" → the poet speaks on behalf of all black people in the black diaspora. • "I" is a collective "I". Hughes places the "I" in Africa to state the importance of their African

roots and ancestry whether in Egypt (Nile) or the Congo (Congo River).• There is no conflict between the 2 identities → the poem flows thanks to the use of soft

consonants and enjambments.

II) Rivers and Black history.

• Role in black settlements → along the Nile (Egyptian ancient civilizations)/ along the Congo (where the slave trade took place) → hence the symbolical value of rivers for black people/ East of the Mississippi (slave states → the deep South).

• Hughes refers to an anecdote about Abraham Lincoln who is said to have started fighting for the abolition of slavery when as a young man, he visited New Orleans, a slave state (Emancipation Act, 1863).

• "I've known rivers" → Hughes refers to black history, experience since the beginning of civilization. He underlines the richness, diversity, depths and longevity of black history. African-Americans history is complex and deep because it goes back to the distant past ("deep" ; "ancient rivers"). He takes pride in it when he refers to the building of pyramids, a mark of civilization + black history didn't just start with slavery.

III) Rivers and black soul.

• Soul → life force of the body, hence Hughes states that the black soul is strong because it drives its strength from the long history of black people.

• It's almost timeless because it goes back to a time when humanity was not born. Pre-human times → pre-racial times? Or transcendence/ mysticism when he pushes black history back to the creation of the world.

• The rivers flows like bloods in our veins → the river may symbolize the linking of mankind both historically and symbolically.

Conclusion : Like many of Hughes's other writings, the poem depicts an African-American who recognizes and reaffirms his connection to Africa and uses that African heritage as a source of pride.

Aunt Sue's Story.

Intro :

• 1921• Oral tradition ; African heritage ; episode of the life of Langston when it went to live with

his grandmother. Probable source of inspiration of the poem. • Situation in the collection → “Afro-American Fragments”.

I) Who?

• Aunt Sue → older generation. → family member or a close friend. → inspired by his grandmother. → a mythical character ≠ anonymous child. “dark-faced”/brown-faced”.

II) When and where?

• “Summer night”→ On the front porch outside because it's hot, probably after dinner. Holidays with family.

“Hot sun” of the South.

III) What?

• “head full” → memories from her past, anecdotes. • “heart full” → emotional and personal events.

Based on her joys and sorrows.• “Real stories” → based on her life ≠ look stories fictions.

• Slavery (stanza 2) ; a typical day of black slave. • “Working” in the fields. • “Walking in the dewy night” → they work until late in the evening.• “Singing sorrow songs” → slave songs.

Longing for freedom near the river → Mississippi.• “dark shadows […] recross” → she's haunted by ghosts from the past, it's a difficult

memory.

Conclusion : It's an oblique tribute to his grandmother and his loving Aunt Mary Reed.

Angels Wings.

Intro :

• Section : “Feet of Jesus” → religious theme/ Gospel form.• Hughes and religion → irony, skepticism but inspired by Gospel to experiment in the form

of the poem while out the time integrating black music into his poetry.• Theme → Hughes criticizes the color symbolism in religion.• 1928.

I) Symbolism.

1) “White as snow”.

• Angels → religion/ the divine → innocence (beauty).• White → purity (+ cleanliness), snow. • Wings → lightness = freedom.

2) “But” → opposition white/ black.

• “Drug” (≠ wings) → heaviness, difficulty to move, lack of freedom.• “Fire” → hell ≠ snow, angels (heaven).• Dirty (impunity → sin) ≠ snow (cleanliness) ≠ “mire”, mud.

II) “A gospel poem”.

• Short lines.• Repetition of “white as snow” → the echo by the choir. • “O” → a song → the poem be sung.• The religious theme.• Freedom from traditions → he experiments with topography.

Conclusion : Language shapes our vision of the world.

Cliche “White as snow” in our language givesmoral connotations

to whiteness.

Ku Klux.

Intro :

• It belongs to the section “Magnolia Flowers” which deals with the South during segregation.

• The title “Ku Klux” refers to the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan was a far-right organization founded in 1865 in the United States of America. It believed in white supremacy, white nationalism and was completely against immigration. In the twenties, the Ku Klux Klan grew to an incredible size performing different acts of violence against Catholics, Blacks, Jews, and radicals.

• 1921.

I) Dramatic situation.

• In the 1st stanza, on the second verse, we’ve got a piece of information : “some lonesome place” → the story could take place anywhere, but far from the other people’s view. In fact, the Klansmen didn’t want to be seen, because they could have been arrested and put in jail.

• It’s a singular first-person narrative point of view : one may quote, in the second stanza “I said”. This man must be a black one, because he suffers racism from the KKK → they call him “nigger”.

• We can notice an evolution in the way the speaker calls them. In fact, little by little, we discover who these men are. At first, we haven’t got any precise piece of information, except that there are many men → “they”. Then, we know they are white. And at the end, it becomes obvious that they are members of the KKK, thanks to the word “Klansman”.

• The violence is both verbal → they call him “nigger”, they want to force him to acknowledge the superiority of white people, and physical → “kick”.

II) Structure.

• The poem is organized into 5 equal stanzas. In fact, each stanza is composed of 4 verses. The first stanza is a quite violent presentation of the situation, because we directly know that racist people want to threaten a black man by uttering “great white race”. Moreover, they are in an isolate place, so nobody could see them. In the third stanza, “The white man” is accusing him of being “sassy”/ insolent, cheeky ; besides the men don't let him time to answer because, in the fourth stanza, we know that they hit him.

III) Themes.

• Hughes tells us of a black man being assaulted by the Ku Klux Klan. At the beginning, the man is verbally assaulted, then struck on the head, and finally kicked once on the ground. While a first reading may only show the negative side of a lynch mob, a closer reading will bring to light the peaceful nature of Hughes. We can notice the man in the poem does not talk back, nor does he fight back. Hughes delivers his message by showing how a passive resistance stance can do more damage than an aggressive retaliation. The irony in the poem makes one feel and think that the "great white race" is not so great.

Conclusion : thanks to this poem, Langston Hughes denounces racial violence, which was very present at that time. Because he suffered discrimination at home and in society, and because he couldn’t bear any kind of racism, he became very involved in poetry, to denounce what happened, to be recognize as a full human being. In a way, he fought for his freedom, and for all the black community’s.

Share-Croppers.

Intro :

• It belongs to the section “Magnolia Flowers” which deals with the South during Segregation.

• After emancipation, most southern blacks were forced to become share croppers and were enslaved by debts as tenant farmers. That's why it seemed to have been written from the viewpoint of a slave. It expresses the despair of (black) people locked into sharecropping, another form of slavery.

• Reminds 3 aspects of the enslavement of black people : hard work, absence of salary or rewards, racial hierarchy.

• Published in 1942.

I) Slave labor.

• They are considered as animals : “a herd”, like oxen's or donkeys.• Their work is very physical : “Plowing, planting, hoeing”. • They worked in the cotton fields → grow cotton is very difficult.

II) Economic exploitation.

• The work is unpaid : “When the cotton’s picked / And the work is done /Boss man takes the money / And we get none.”.

• The boss made large profits.• They have not any recognition of intelligence or individual worth.

III) Racialized agriculture.

• It's an inferior species which is “driven to the field” in order to bring back the cotton.• Their humanity is not recognized : “we are nothing more / Than a herd of Negroes”.• They are in danger but nobody helps them : “Leaves us hungry, ragged”.• The years pass but their condition doesn't change → the boss are still idiot, he doesn't

evolve, he has no mercy.

Conclusion : “The slave went free, stood a brief moment in the sun, then moved back again toward slavery”. (Du Bois, 1955).

The South.

Intro :

• The poem tells the story of an impossible love story between man and the South, which explains why he decides to leave the South and go North. It is the story of millions of black who decided from the 1910s on to abandon their native South to seek a better life in the North, a large scaled movement that was called the Great Migration. The main reason were racial violence and the lack of economic opportunities in a deeply segregated South even if they were aware of what they would miss.

• The poem present the relationship to a region as a human relationship and thus offers a series of personification of the South and the North that we shall analyze.

• In the section “Magnolia Flowers”.

I) The many metaphors of the South.

1) * “ a dark-eyed whore”.“ a woman”.

Comparison.* Personification- Pronouns : “Would love her” / “Her house”.- Adjectives : “Lazy” ; “Laughing” ; “Passionate” ; “Cruel” etc.- Body parts, especially face : “Lips”, (“Brain”), “Mouth”.- Actions/ Verbs : “Scratch” ; “Spit” ; “Turn her back”.

Transition : The beginning of the poem has an uneasy atmosphere.

2) First image. Violent (“blood”), worrying. A mad person. A devil. A vampire. Or wild beast.

• South has committed crimes against black people : - “Child -minded”, “Idiot-brained” → Ignorance is responsible for these crimes.- Cruel

II) The love story (He has to choose between two women).

1) The South : “Beautiful” (Beauty of nature → “sky”, “magnolia-scented”) | “Seductive” → “Spell” | “Dark-eyed”/ mysterious → dangerous | “Syphilitic” / “whore” → dangerous.

2) The North : “So” → consequence | “Cold-faced” ≠ “Sunny-faced”/ “Warmth”.- But he considers setting down with her/ having kids because she is “kinder”.- Hope for the future but uncertainly (“May” ; “They say”).

Conclusion : In the same way that the inhabitants of the German Democratic Republic were fleeing to the West, millions of black decided to abandon their native South to seek a better life in the North of the United States.

LikeAs

Dangerous forThe narrator.

Note on Commercial Theatre.

Intro :

• “Negro was in vogue” → “vogue” of African-American culture : black writing and art + jazz and theatre.

• Harlem → hot spot for this new culture + many white people attempted to infuse their own cut with new African-American styles, resulting in hybrid music and theatre.

• Section → “Name in Uphill Letters”.

I) Who?

• Pronouns.- White people “You” “I” Speaks on behalf of black people. “They” “Me” “My”

• “Yep” → Orality/ Oral speech (“'em”).• Repetition of “You” → he reproaches white people with exploiting black music, even

stealing black music (“Blues” and “Spirituals”). “Taken and gone”.

II) Exploitation of black music.

• Where → “Broadway” shows (musicals ; ex : Carmen Jones) in New York City. → “Hollywood Bowl” in Los Angeles.

• Transformation of the original : “Mix”, “Fix” with classical music. • Black music is unrecognizable : “So they don't sound like me”.

III) Necessity to change.

• “Stand up” → Blacks must rebel, express themselves.• “Talk” + “Sing” + “Write” + “Put on plays”

• “Black and beautiful” ≠ Ridiculous stereotypes / caricatures in minstrel shows. Stupid. Joyful. Superstitious.

• “About me” ≠ vision of black life created by white people.• “It'll be me” → both a demand for self-representation and a promise from Hughes to do it

himself, as a poet and writer.

Conclusion : Hughes expresses an antipathy to black culture being absorbed by whites.

Essays, Articles.

Ex : Du Bois.

Black Music.

ExBillie

Holiday

BlackLiterature,

poetry.

Plays and Their

Adaptation. Ex : James

WeldonJohnson.

One-Way Ticket.

Intro :

• This poem refers to a particular moment of African-American history called the Great Migration.

• The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million African-American out of the rural Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from 1910 to 1970

• Section : “Name in Uphill Letters”.

Foreword :

• In this poem, the narrator “I”, a black man, is a potential migrant who decides to leave the South, the deep South nicknamed “Dixieland” (name given to former slave states).

• The migration is represented with the metaphor “pick up my life” which suggests a quick decision ; he will pack his few possessions (he's poor) and leave. No mention of family.

• The title “One-Way Ticket” implies that he will never return/come back to the South ; he is leaving for good + he taken the train : train “ticket”, “on the train” (Cf : train and American culture).

I) Where is he going?

• North : Chicago → big industrial city (work in slaughterhouses, factories), arrival of railway resulted in a boom. | Detroit (Michigan) → Middle West, Motown/ Motor city (car industry), river/ harbor. | Buffalo (NYC) → steel and car industry, arrival of railway. | Scranton → Pennsylvania.

• West : LA, Oakland, Bakersfield → Gold Rush, arrival of railway. | Seattle → Washington State. | Salt Lake City → Utah, mining industry.

II) Why is he leaving?

• He's desperate (“any place”) ; his situation is unbearable (“fed up”, “Gone!”). Cf. Economic dead end (sharecropping), racial violence (“Jim Crow laws” → strict segregation in public places, transportation and school, KKK, lynching/ “lynch and run”, “cruel”).

• Fear : “afraid”, “scared” ; whites fear blacks (stereotypes) and vice versa (“me of them”) ; they live in fear.

Conclusion : The North was viewed as the promised land, an idea perpetuated by the need for factory workers and the fact that pay in such factories was typically as much as three times more than what blacks made working the land in the South. But while segregation was not legalized in the North, as it was in the South, blacks experienced prejudice and racism in the North, commonly know as “de facto segregation”. Life in the North presented its own challenges for blacks, including poor living conditions and harsh, often dangerous work environments.