Not Without Laughter

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NOT WITHOUT
LAUGHTER
Langston Hughes
This poignant story of a poor Negro family in the Middle-west, is one of the most human, most appealing pictures of the race ever drawn. Mr. Hughes writes of his people, not as a mass, but as individuals—some lazy and lovable, some hard-working, some bigoted, but all fighting the common foes, poverty and prejudice. Here as everywhere, there is bitter conflict between the younger and older generations. Aunt Hager, bent over a washtub for forty years, goes to church and revival meetings to pray that her children may “see the light.” Jimboy and Harriet laugh, dance, and sing in the sun, forgetful of all but pleasure; and little Sandy tries to puzzle out for himself why he cannot have a Golden Flyer sled for Christmas and why he must sit in the last row at school.
Here is none of the melodrama of Harlem cabarets nor the sentimentality of Southern cotton fields. Instead, there is a glowing beauty and a sensitive perception in this deeply human picture of a simple people, living in a typical Kansas town, meeting as best they can the problems of their destructive, complex environment. In their lives, Mr. Hughes embodies the joys, the pathos, the

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