SOURCE: "Heroic 'Hussies' and 'Brilliant Queers': Genderracial Resistance in the Works of Langston Hughes," in African American Review, Vol. 28, No. 3, Fall, 1994, pp. 333-45.

In the following essay, Borden examines how freely Hughes discussed gender and race relations in his works.

In his writings, Langston Hughes explores the convergence of race and gender in Black men's and women's lives, questioning binary constructions of identity and exploring sensuality in relation to social change. These are the pages, as bell hooks suggests, that lay marked on bedside tables, that become worn with searching fingers, that represent something other than "the Langston Hughes most folks read or remember." They are poems and stories that deal with love among Black men and women, nature, romantic quandary, mother-daughter and father-son relations, friendship, and silences. In discussing Black male and female identity, Hughes speaks of the ways gender uniquely colors these experiences. He writes in...