Mother to Son

Langston Hughes was a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance – the African-American cultural revival that spanned the 1920s and 1930s – and he wrote poetry that focused on the Black experience in America. His poem "Mother to Son" was first published in 1922 in The Crisis (official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), and in 1926 it was included in his first poetry collection, The Weary Blues. == Text ==

Hughes's poems "Mother to Son", "The Negro Speaks of Rivers", and "Harlem" were described in the Encyclopedia of African-American Writing as "anthems of black America". The linguist John Rickford considers Hughes's use of African-American Vernacular English to be representative of "a convention of dialect writing rather than an accurate depiction of African-American speech". Mother "Mother to Son" is the first of several of Hughes's poems that present strong women. The mother in the poem uses a metaphor of a staircase to convey "the hardships of Black life" while also her progress and perseverance. As the woman is climbing the stairs, she becomes almost comparable to a religious figure ascending into the heavens, yet remains simply human. who could represent numerous African-American mothers urging their children forward. The professor R. Baxter Miller considers "Mother to Son" to illustrate "how dialect can be used with dignity." == Citations ==