Brought about by the pain, inhumanity, and suffrage of their people, African American writers sought to necessitate change. Through their prose and poetry, these writers have vividly portrayed the way blacks were mistreated, their feelings toward this oppression, and their ability to endure in spite of it. Dealing with issues such as race, class, and gender, they paint a clear picture of the African American struggle.
             Authors such as Claude McKay, Charles Chestnut, and Langston Hughes address the issue of race in their writing. In Claude McKay's poem, "If We Must Die," he identifies the need for his "kinsmen" to stand up against oppression and fight back. If they all must die, he argues, they might as well die nobly as opposed to "...like hogs hunted and penned in an inglorious spot." He is telling his race that it is better to stand up for what they believe in and to fight for equality than to endure the injustices of racism and die as cowards.
             Charles Chestnut also deals with the issue of race in his short story, "Po' Sandy." In this story, he tells of a slave, Sandy, who was taken away from his family to be used as a laborer for neighbor farms because he was such a superb worker. While he was away, his wife was sold, and he was never able to see her again. Through this story Chestnut was conveying to the reader the dehumanization of the black slaves. This dehumanization was the result of owners destroying their bonds and disrupting the family unit without any sense of remorse. Clearly, slaves were not valued as people, but as property. Whatever respect Sandy received was the result of his worth to the owner and he wasn't rewarded in any way for it.
             Langston Hughes also dealt with the issue of race in his works. In his poem, "I, Too," Hughes writes about how he is forced to eat in the kitchen when company comes. His resolve to eat at the table in the ...