Goodbye+Christ

Goodbye Christ---Langston Hughes Raven Ford Published in //The Negro Worker// 1932 Photographed by Carl Van Vechtan in 1936

Langston Hughes * Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Mississippi * February 1, 1902 * He later died in New York, New York * May 22, 1967; he was 65 years old * Wrote his poetry during the Harlem Renaissance * Known as the earliest innovators of jazz poetry * One day a poet named Vachel Lindsay who publicized his discovery of a black poet // Goodbye Christ // * This poem was written while Langston Hughes was in Russia for a video on racism * When the movie crashed he stayed for another year which is also the time where is wrote three of his most radical poems * //Goodbye Christ, Good Morning Revolution,// and //One More S in the USA// * These poems were not written because of Langston turning into a Communist * He was never Red he merely wanted to express some of the good ideas that he saw and wrote them down * The Soviet Union’s effect on Langston Hughes was the idea of the ending of all racism and exploitation * Hughes Being of mixed descent found that way of life truly welcoming * No longer would he have to be scorned because of his heritage or told he was not able to go somewhere because of his racial background * Langston Hughes never became a Communist he merely supported the idea of equality for everyone Poem Analysis * The poem //Goodbye Christ// is a dramatic monologue where a man is speaking to Christ who is no longer wanted * He is asking Christ and all of the other major religions and preachers to leave and make room for the new wave coming in that has no religion * This poem is directed toward the people that have used the word of Christ for their own personal benefit and made it so the word of God no longer meant anything to people * This poem is written in a free verse narrative where the speaker of poem is telling Christ that he needs to leave because there is nothing left for him * All of the people can use and abuse his word, Hughes describes the story of Christ as… * “They ghosted you up a swell story too” * Lines 17-22 are a segue to the next part of Langston Hughes conversation with Christ and is also where he tells all of the other major religions and their main figure heads to leave as well * This poem is discussing the points of a man who has lost his faith and has found peace in a movement that he believes will help him reach peace and achieve greatness * The fact that he is constantly being told that he cannot do something because of his ethnicity shows a desperate man who is seeking comfort from any source * In the times of racism and prejudice there were many people who began looking for a way to achieve equality among their fellow man, and ideas of Marxism and Communism gave them hope for their future * In the second stanza of the poem the speaker is telling Christ how people have used him so much over the years that there is no meaning in the words of the Bible anymore because the meanings have been twisted and warped to fit the meaning of the people preaching and not the true meaning that it is supposed to entail * Langston Hughes does not just ask Jesus Christ leave but, in the fifth and last stanza he writes for all of the major world religions and supporters to also leave

Saint Gandhi Born October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, India. One of the most respected spiritual leaders. He became the leader of the Indian Nationalist Movement in 1930. He taught that anything could be achieved through peace, was a Hindu and killed in 1948 at point blank range. Took three bullets to the chest

Saint Pope Pius XII Did not support the fascist government, and encouraged the anti-union fascist groups that tortured, imprisoned many people that were supporters of Communism.

Saint Aimee McPherson Evangelist that founded the Church of the Four-Square Gospel located in Echo Park, California. She sent picketers and a sound truck to prevent the public reading of the poem, the truck played “God Bless America”