This essay begins with an anecdote: "One of the most promising of the young Negro poets said to me once, 'I want to be a poet—not a Negro poet'" (1). Hughes interprets this statement as the unnamed poet's latent desire to be a white poet, and by extension a white person. He goes on to include a rather precise biographical background of the mystery writer. The reader learns that the unnamed poet stems from a middle class family that is comfortable if not rich, attends a Baptist church, and is headed by a father who works a club for whites only and a mother that sometimes supervises parties for rich white folk. Notably for the time, the children attend a school without racial segregation of the students.
Hughes says that the poet's statement reflects his upbringing, which has been one that encourages assimilation into dominant white society rather than a celebration of Blackness and Black culture. By contrast, Hughes provides a description of what life is like for the seemingly lower-class Black neighborhoods in the country: these are people who have no desire to emulate white society but are instead content and laudatory of their own Blackness and what it means historically, socially, and artistically.
Hughes focuses on one of the great failings of the American system of education and culture: standardization. He recognizes that there is an inherent value placed on white art and culture over Black art and culture, even among Black people themselves. Here, Hughes uses as an example a prominent black woman from Philadelphia who would prefer to hear a famous Spanish star singing Andalusian folks songs than Clara Smith, a black singer, perform Negro folk songs. He compares this woman's preferences to the Black churches that continue to sing classical hymns rather than Black spirituals.
Hughes transitions to the undeniable fact that he himself is living in a great moment for Black artists in which their works have suddenly become in vogue. This present contrasts sharply with the recent past when novels by fine Black writers like Charles Chestnutt have been allowed to go out of print and disappear from shelves. While being in fashion has brought newfound and much-deserved attention to Black artists, however, Hughes insists it has become a double-edged sword in which greater pressure is placed on Black artists to assimilate to white cultural standards. Paradoxically, the cost that must be paid for this conformity is the very rejection of their Blackness.
The essay concludes with Hughes encouraging his fellow Black artists to indulge and celebrate Blackness and its history. He imagines scorned but talented Black musicians and poets finally getting through to the Black citizens who reject them, finally allowing these citizens to see their own beauty. He announces that whether white or self-loathing Black critics are pleased is irrelevant, because in expressing themselves in a way that is true to their identity, they are "free within ourselves" (14).
