It was a period when, at every Harlem upper-crust dance or party, one would be introduced to various distinguished white celebrities there as guests. It was a period when almost any Harlem Negro of any social importance at all would be likely to say casually: 'As I was remarking to Heywood—,' meaning Heywood Broun. Or: 'As I said to George—,' referring to George Gershwin […] It was a period when white writers wrote about Negroes more successfully (commercially speaking) than Negroes did about themselves. It was the period (God help us!) when Ethel Barrymore appeared in blackface in Scarlet Sister Mary! It was the period when the Negro was in vogue."

Hughes is all about telling it like it was for the "New Negro" during the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance. And it wasn't pretty. It was more about currying favor with white people than it was about the political and artistic advancement of African Americans. In fact, some of the writers and actors of the Harlem Renaissance were, themselves, white.

If you were expecting Hughes to be all nostalgic about the "New Negro" in his autobiographical account, then he's about to set you straight. The "New Negro" was supposed to be a cultural movement led by and focused entirely on black Americans in the early 20th Century. But it ended up being the exact opposite: a cultural movement by and about white people who were interested in black people, culture, and lifestyles.

How did that happen? It's hard to say, but Hughes thought it had a lot to do with social climbing:

At every Harlem upper-crust dance or party, one would be introduced to various distinguished white celebrities there as guests. It was a period when almost any Harlem Negro of any social importance at all would be likely to say casually: 'As I was remarking to Heywood—,' meaning Heywood Broun. Or: 'As I said to George—,' referring to George Gershwin.

So, what we have are a bunch of black men and women in Harlem who were more interested in name-dropping and hobnobbing with white celebrities than in advancing some social or political agenda.

Not like we blame them. We'd probably be star-struck if we saw someone like George Gershwin (the major American composer of maybe all time) walk into a party. But it can be pretty hard to take down something so insidious as racism when those with the most money and power are more into cultivating connections with well-to-do whites than supporting the political and artistic lives of black people.

Hughes wasn't afraid to be critical of the very same movement he helped to found. Which is pretty cool, if you ask us.

Two things to notice right off the bat.

First, Hughes repeats "it was a period when" in almost every sentence of this really long passage (which we've actually cut down). All that repetition isn't there because Hughes is a boring writer; that phrase is full of grandeur. It's like the first line from Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…"

The phrase is meant to introduce some great wisdom about that period. But of course, that's not what happens. Instead of something grand, Hughes describes all these superficial parties and people—things that the "New Negro" movement totally wasn't supposed to be about.

So Hughes's writing style sets you up for something positive, and then flips the script. It's a fun, dramatic move that's intended to shatter people's romantic notions of the Harlem Renaissance.

Second, Hughes ends the passage with a twist on the whole phrase the "New Negro." Instead of using the originally coined "New Negro," he ends the paragraph with the phrase "when the Negro was in vogue." While "in vogue" has some similar connotations to "new," this chichi phrase—taken from French—is usually used to describe fashion trends.

There's a reason why Vogue, the magazine, is called what it is. So when Hughes uses it to describe freed slaves, he's pointing to the clear irony of the Harlem Renaissance, as it really played out. In his opinion, the people of the movement simply couldn't live up to their own social and political ideals.

We know, we're kind of being killjoys here. But we can't help it. Hughes wasn't exactly chipper about how the "New Negro" movement turned out.