Question

The Road: by Helene Johnson

Answer 1

The poem The Road was written by author Helene Johnson, born in 1906. She was a poet of the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement started in 1918 also known as “The New Black Movement”. A descendant of former slaves, Johnson wrote several poems in which she presents and explores issues concerning gender and race.

In The Road, the author is comparing the road to herself and her people, the black people. She states the color brown of the road is similar to her own color, and the road’s beauty is trodden like the pride of black people was also trodden. However, she says that the road, “dust of the dust”, must not be hurt. Similarly, black people shall not be hurt or silenced, even if treated like dust of the dust. They must speak up, and their clamor shall be heard as a “brimming golden, spilling cry”.

This “cry” may be interpreted as the Harlem Renaissance movement itself, since the cultural production by African-American artists beautifully expressed their intellectualism, creativity and racial pride. The trodden beauty of the road, of the people, does not become less beautiful. It becomes stronger, golden and overflowing.