Like Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, and others, Langston Hughes drew deeply on his own experiences as a black American for focus and enrichment. That experience is the primary study of all of his literary work.

Hughes's poetry captures and brings to the surface of black artifacts like music, argot, dance, and imposed stereotypical images, the deep pain and anguish lying hidden within. "Dream Boogie" slips behind only momentarily the rhythms of boogie to suggest something dark that whites ("Daddy") might not tolerate. "Harlem," on the other hand, strips back the veneer to reveal the nasty ugliness of the black "dream deferred" and dares to project its consequences.