The Mountain
Hughes uses the "racial mountain" as a symbol for the difficulties a serious Black artist must overcome in order to achieve their goal of impactful art. This mountain stands in their way, as it is the desire of most upper-class or "learned" African-Americans to conform to whiteness, aspiring to the apparent dignity and respectability of the white middle class.
The Young Negro Poet
The young Black poet to whom Hughes alludes at the beginning of the essay becomes a symbol for the Black middle class. He is talented, but he has an inner desire to become more like white men, neglecting the value of his own culture. Hughes refers to this particular group of Black citizens as the "Nordicized Negro intelligentsia" (10).
Whiteness
Hughes argues that, for many Black families in the United States, whiteness itself is a symbol of everything that is virtuous, powerful, and correct. In his own words, "the word white comes to be unconsciously a symbol of all virtues. It holds for the children beauty, morality, and money. The whisper of 'I want to be white' runs silently through their minds" (2).
Jazz
Hughes uses jazz as a symbol of Black culture and its vitality. There are those who, aspiring to whiteness and disowning their own culture, condemn jazz as base and vulgar. Hughes, however, praises jazz, arguing that it is at the heart of Black expression in the United States. He imagines that, in the future, jazz will be adopted by other artistic disciplines for Black creatives.
