Describing Heyward's achievement in "Porgy", the African-American poet and playwright Langston Hughes said Heyward was one who saw "with his white eyes, wonderful, poetic qualities in the inhabitants of Catfish Row that makes them come alive." Heyward's biographer James M. Hutchisson characterized "Porgy" as "the first major southern novel to portray blacks without condescension" and said that the libretto to "Porgy and Bess" was largely Heyward's work. Critics have described Heyward as sympathetic in his portrayal of the Southern blacks in his work.