One Friday Morning

Hughes published “One Friday Morning” later in his literary career—in July, 1941, when the energy and enthusiasm of the Harlem Renaissance had been significantly tempered by the decade-long global economic collapse that defined the 1930s. Published in a special Fourth of July edition of Crisis magazine just five months before Pearl Harbor, Hughes’s story is a war story—a cautionary tale directed not just to Black America but to white America as well. The epiphany Nancy Lee experiences as she pledges allegiance to the flag is a wake-up call to those citizens, white and Black, discontented and even angered by America’s failure to live up to its own ideal of equal opportunity.

Through this lens, the story is both an indictment of the failures of white America and a cautiously optimistic endorsement of the aspirations and ideals (if not the reality) of America. In a story that utilizes the American flag as a frequent motif, the definition of America and the responsibilities of patriotic Americans to improve their country becomes the focus. As Nancy Lee points out, the Johnsons are “like most Americans, simple, ordinary people who [work] hard.” And Nancy Lee herself “sometimes [forgets] she [is] colored” (2). 

Hughes uses the characters of a sensitive young Black artist and a compassionate, white school administrator to remind both Black and white America that only together can America realize the potential of its own ideals and withstand the growing threat of totalitarianism. In the end, a tearful Nancy Lee embraces America because of, not despite, its imperfections. Through Miss O’Shay, Hughes highlights the historical discrimination against Irish immigrants to America to emphasize the idea that democracy is a demanding work-in-perpetual-progress. Miss O’Shay and Nancy Lee, and by extension white and Black America, must commit to the real work of making the concept of American democracy a reality for all.

“One Friday Morning” represents a traditional Künstleromman, a coming-of-age story that tracks the first awakenings of a young artist. The story hinges on what Nancy Lee learns from two important mentors, the art teacher Miss Dietrich and the assistant-principal Miss O’Shay. These two influential figures present her with two options for how to be a Black artist in 1940s America: using art as an escape from the harsh realities of the world or as a tool to engage the world with bold idealism. Nancy Lee embraces engagement which provides Hughes’s story with its aspirational ending. 

Hughes positions Nancy Lee’s winning watercolor as emblematic of Miss Diedrich’s artistic philosophy. She’s the kind of art teacher who “taught her [best students] law and order in doing things” (2). Nancy Lee’s painting captures a city park in spring. Its every line clean and clear, the painting balances the blue sky with “paper-white clouds,” the “new green grass” with the still leafless trees ready to blossom (3). An elderly Black woman sits on a bench, happily part of a world bursting into life. Hughes emphasizes the intention and order in Nancy’s choices: “In [Nancy Lee’s] mind the flag, the spring, and the woman formed a kind of triangle holding a dream” (3). Everything is proportional. Every element belongs. The perspective is careful. Miss Dietrich describes it as “A picture finished […] a design created” (2). 

The painting itself implicitly reflects the intentional optimism embraced by Nancy at the end of the story. It’s not spring as it is but spring as it ought to be, idealized and harmonized through the eye of the artist. It’s not the kind of painting that “you had to look at for a long time to understand what it meant.” The inherent idealism in the painting is shattered by the racist decision of the committee to revoke the award when they discover the artist is not white, defining the central tension of the story. 

Through the assistant-principal, Miss O’Shay, Hughes makes Nancy’s challenge as an artist explicit: Miss O’Shay encourages Nancy Lee not to retreat from the world and surrender to despair but to work toward change. Hughes notes that Miss O’Shay delivers her encouraging words with the morning sunshine “tangled”  in her gray hair, underscoring the importance of her illuminating message. Discouragement, Miss O’Shay suggests, is part of the never-ending work to realize the potential of America and its commitment to democracy. Hughes reinforces the importance of this encouragement, noting that Miss O’Shay’s “voice [is] an electric flow of strength to the hurt spirit of Nancy Lee” (9).

Hughes concludes the story with Nancy Lee embracing Miss O’Shay’s words and pledging to do everything she can to make America work. As Hughes’s own prolific career attests, this is the credo of the American artist, Black or white. Her eyes wet with tears, Nancy Lee pledges her allegiance not to America as it is but to an America that could be, that might be created through the vision and energy of its best artists. The message is as simple as it is complicated: Democracy must be worked on to succeed. “This is the land,” Nancy Lee decides, “we must make” (9).  Black and white Americans “must stand against ignorance, narrowness, hate,” which Nancy Lee compares to mud spattered on the bright stars of the American flag.