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Morton Marcus: I dream a world where man no other man will scorn, where love will bless the earth and peace its path adorn. I dream a world where all will know sweet freedom's way, where greed no longer saps the soul nor avarice blights our day. A

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world I dream where black or white, whatever race you be, will share the bounties of the earth and every man is free, where wretchedness will hang its head and joy, like a pearl, attends the needs of all mankind. Of such I dream, my

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world. The man who wrote that's name was Langston Hughes, and he was born in Joplin, Missouri on February 1st, 1902. And this is going to be a program of this very complex protean

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personality, in honor not only of his birthday, but in honor of this being Black History Month, because Langston Hughes was one of the most important organizers, and travelers and writers of all different kinds of writing that the African

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American community produced, and really put them on the literary map as editor, columnist, novelist, poet, world-traveler, and journalist. So, this is a program now, of Langston Hughes. And I'd like to read a very short introduction and biography

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on Langston Hughes, done by the wonderful contemporary novelist, essayist, and terrific poet, Al Young, who will be on the show in the spring and who has been on the show several times in his anthology, "African American Literature: A Brief Introduction

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and Anthology." And he says this of Langston Hughes and it's very interesting again, Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, the family then moved to Ohio. And he says this; Langston Hughes was running track for his Cleveland, Ohio

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here's Al: High School when he wrote, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," which has since become one of his most widely anthologized poems. Raised by his maternal grandmother after his parents

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separated and his father moved to Mexico, the teenage Hughes made Honor Roll and edited the school yearbook while submitting his poetry to the influential publication of the NAACP, The Crisis. In 1921, upon his father's condition that he

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studied engineering, Hughes entered Columbia University, only to leave dissatisfied and yearning to be a writer a year later. He then joined the Merchant Marines and traveled to Italy, Africa and France as a cook's helper. Eventually,

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Hughes received his bachelor's degree in 1929 from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. After returning to the States, though, in 1925, Hughes worked as a busboy in a Washington, DC hotel restaurant, where as the famous story goes, he noticed

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the poet Vachel Lindsay, and conveniently left several poems in prominent view by his dinner plate. The next day Hughes read newspaper headlines about the discovery of a busboy poet. And later that year, eleven of his poems appeared in The New Negro,

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Alain Locke's seminal anthology of African American literature. Two books of poetry followed quickly, "The Weary Blues," in 1926 and, "Fine Clothes to the Jew," 1927. More than a talented writer had been born, one of the most influential figures of the

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Harlem Renaissance, and of American Modernism had launched his originally varied career and productive career. With his writing career at full steam, Hughes travelled widely to such places as Cuba, Russia, China, and Japan and at one point

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covered the Spanish Civil War as a correspondent for The Baltimore Afro-American. When he was not abroad, he actively encouraged the development of other artists, offering his valued support to such writers a Gwendolyn Brooks and Jame

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Weldon Johnson. Hughes als collaborated on projects wit Zona Neale Hurston and Arn Bontemps. And in the interest o furthering the creation workin relationships between poetry an the other arts, Hughes founde several theatrical groups in Ne

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York, Chicago, and Los Angeles Meanwhile, his enormous body o published work steadil accumulated. Eventually, i would total ten volumes o poetry, including the famous "Montage of a Dream Deferred, in 1951, nine books of fiction

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five of which are based on th Jesse B. Semple character, nin plays and two autobiographies not to mention several scholarl studies, film scripts children's books, translations librettos, newspaper articles and the numerous anthologie

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that he edited. Despite hi impressive versatility, poetr remains Hughes' literar priority, and his innovations i that realm would influenc subsequent generations o American poets. By capturing i verses the weight that averag

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folk spoke and sang about th dark ironies and quiet glorie of everyday living, Langsto Hughes demonstrated how writer could, like the jazz musician and blues singers he so admired rearranged the hidden rhythm and cadences of colloquia

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idioms into the highest o literary forms. A beautiful introduction by Al Young. And let me read some of those poems that he just talked about, the early poems. Here's the first poem that Langston Hughes published, "The Negro

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Speaks of Rivers," the famous one when he was 19. And it goes like this, and he always considered himself a spokesman for the people and also the provider of voices from the street and voices from the fields of the South, as well as

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his own voice speaking of the situation of all downtrodden people around the world. THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS I've known rivers. I've known rivers ancient as the world and

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older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above

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it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golded in the sunset. I've known rivers, ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

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And I want you to notice that there is no -- how shall I say it -- dialect in that poem and I'm going to be reading a lot of poems today that do not contain black dialect, but in a lot of other poems, Langston Hughes does, very purposely, try to

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capture the voices around him and does even use the blues form in his poems, the repetition of phrases and terms and high melody, [unidentified] rhyme, and also the sense of dialect in poetry.

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So here is THE WEARY BLUES, which is the title of his first book. Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the

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other night by the pale dull pallor of an old gas light, he did a lazy sway. He did a lazy sway to the tune of those Weary Blues. With his ebony hands on each ivory key he made that poor piano moan with melody. O blues, swaying to and fro on his

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rickety stool. He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool. Sweet blues, coming from a black man's soul. O blues, in a deep song voice with a melancholy tone I heard the Negro sing, that old piano moan, "Ain't got nobody in all this

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world, ain't got nobody but ma self. I's gwine to quit ma frownin and put ma troubles on the shelf." Thump, thump, went his foot on the floor. He played a few chords then he sang some more. "I got the Weary Blues and I can't be satisfied. Got the

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Weary Blues and can't be satisfied. I ain't happy no mo' and I wish that I had died." And far into the night he crooned that tune. The stars went out and so did the moon. The singer stopped playing and went to bed while the Weary Blues echoed

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through his head. He slept like a rock or a man that's dead. Now, Langston Hughes was a very complex man and he was an angry man. His poems really move from the most lyric to the most revolutionary. And there are many different attitudes now

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towards him as happens in all aspects of life between the generations. And in the introduction to the Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, Arnold Rampersad and David Roselle write this, and I wanted to read these first two paragraphs

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because we're going to be getting into this and we're going to be getting into the history. It's interesting the "Poem of Rivers" that Hughes starts out with, he is always aware of history, he is always aware of other cultures. He is a

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man who is educated by the current events around him and by the long history of the past, but here's what they say about Langston Hughes is one of the ore controversial names in the istory of American poetry. To any readers of African descent,

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e is their Poet Laureate, the eloved author of poems steeped n the richness of African merican culture, poems that xude Hughes' affection for lack Americans across all ivisions of region, class, and ender. To many readers who love

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erse and are also committed to he idea of social and political ustice, he is among the most loquent American poets to have ung about the wounds caused by njustice. For still other him:

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dmirers, he is above all, the uthor of poems of often ouching, lyric beauty, beyond ssues such as race and justice. here is however another and ess flattering aspect to ughes' reputation. To a sub tantial number of readers and

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especially scholar critics, Hug es' approach to poetry was far too simple and unlearned. To the , his verse fails laminably to atisfy their desire for a mod rnist literature attuned to the complexities of modern life. Sti l, other readers have found his

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poetry altogether too rad cal politically, at a kind of ffront to their sense of Ame ican patriotism. That is the ess ntial issue that one faces wit Langston Hughes, the later gen rations who are seeking a muc more complex picture of peo

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le of the lyrical voice and the voice of the speaker in the poe , find many of Langston Hug es poems way too simple. I will say that there are many Langston Hughes poems that only go on for six or eight lines, and they are really throwaways

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in many ways. There are others that work in that, that length also. The other aspect to this criticism, however, is the aspect of his radicalism and we will get into that. We will also get into his appearance before the House Un-American Activities

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Committee, that is the McCarthy Hearings in 1953 and what happened there. But now, let us read some of these early poems of Langston Hughes and take him all the way before I will break again until he comes to yes, believe it or not Carmel,

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California. Here is a poem called: AUNT SUE'S STORIES Aunt Sue has a head full of stories. Aunt Sue has a whole heart full of stories. Summer nights on the front porch Aunt

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Sue cuddles a brown-faced child to her bosom and tells him stories. Black slaves working in the hot sun and black slaves walking in the dewy night, and black slaves singing sorrow songs on the banks of a mighty river mingle themselves softly

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in the flow of old Aunt Sue's voice, mingle themselves softly in the dark shadows that cross and recross Aunt Sue's stories. And the dark-faced child, listening, knows that Aunt Sue's stories are real stories. He knows that Aunt Sue never got

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her stories out of any book at all, but that they came right out of her own life. The dark-faced child is quiet on a summer night listening to Aunt Sue's stories And here's one called NEGRO.

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I am a Negro: Black as the night is black, black like the depths of my Africa. I've been a slave: Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean. I brushed the boots of Washington. I've been a worker: Under my hand the pyramids arose. I made mortar

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for the Woolworth Building. I've been a singer: All the way from Africa to Georgia. I carried my sorrow songs. I made ragtime. I've been a victim: The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo. They lynch me still in Mississippi. I am a Negro: Black

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as the night is black, black like the depths of my Africa. And here different- a different, early Hughes. Two poems, one on the moon, both on the moon in fact, one is called: NEW MOON, very short poems.

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There's a new young moon riding the hills tonight. There's a sprightly young moon exploring the clouds. There's a half-shy young moon, veiling her face like a virgin, waiting for a lover.

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And another one called, MY LOVES. I love to see the big white moon, a-shining in the sky. I love to see the little stars when the shadow clouds go by. I love the raindrops falling on my rooftop in the night. I love the

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soft wind's sighing before the dawn's gray light. I love the deepness of the blue in my Lord's heaven above. But better than all these things I think, I love my lady love. Now, as I also said, he does a lot of dialect poems, so let me

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read one of those to you. And this is called, THE FORTUNE TELLER BLUES, and notice that is a blues, those the repetition of phrases and the rhythm. I went to the gypsy, the gypsy took hold of my hand, went to

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the gypsy, gypsy took hold of my hand. She looked at me and told me, "Child, you gonna lose yo' man." These fortune tellers never tell me nothin' kind. I say fortune tellers never tell me nothin' kind. I'd give a hundred dollars to do one that

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would ease my mind. Cause I'll holler and scream and fall down on the flo', say I'll holler and scream and fall down on the flo'. If my man leaves me I won't live no mo'. Here's another one called, WIDE RIVER.

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My baby lives across the river, and I ain't got no boat. She lives across the river, I ain't got no boat. I ain't a good swimmer and I don't know how to float. Wide, wide river 'twixt ma love an' me. Wide, wide river 'twixt ma love an' me. I'd never

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known how wide a river can be. Got to cross that river and get to my baby somehow. Cross that river, get to my baby somehow cause if I don't see my baby, I'll lay down and die right now. So you can see how he uses the music of the blues, the lyrics

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of the blues, and then also how easy it would be to put these lyrics to music itself. Here is a protest song and as you know, Walt Whitman said, I hear America singing in the very carols I hear. And so, here now is Langston Hughes almost

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replying to Walt Whitman who he at one point defended in a piece of writing saying Whitman was not a racist, he was a great American. But here he's commenting on that first great line of Whitman's poem, "I Hear America Singing," and he calls

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this, "I Too." And these are all very early poems from the 1920s. And here is: I TOO. I, too, sing America. I am the dark brother. They send me to

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eat in the kitchen when company comes, but I laugh and eat well and grow strong. Tomorrow I'll be at the table when company comes, nobody will dare say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," then. Besides, they'll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed.

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I, too, am America. Well, that attitude of, you know, tomorrow will come up again and again and that image of tomorrow, it will be different for the African American in America will come up

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again and again through the 65 years of Langston Hughes life. But in the late 20s and early 30s, he changes and becomes an ardent communist. He travels to the Soviet Union, he reads John Reeds, "Ten Days That Shook the World," and he becomes very much

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enamored with the communist cause. It will cause him tremendous difficulties and pain in the years to come. One of the places where it causes this problem is in Carmel, California. And I will read the poem called, "Carmel," which he

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wrote when he was out here, and then tell you the story of his being out here and read from his biography. And this is called MOONLIGHT NIGHT: CARMEL And think of Robinson Jeffers in the way Jeffers would talk about

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the ocean at Carmel, and Carmel, a very, very small village at this time, nothing like what you see today. But certainly our neighbor to the south of the bay here, Monterey and then Carmel. This is what he wrote while he was here and this is in 1934:

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Tonight, the waves march in long ranks cutting the darkness with their silver shanks, cutting the darkness and kissing the moon and beating the land's edge into a swoon. And of course, I read that poem because it does bring to us the

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fact that Langston Hughes was out here in California, and I want to read some of the situation that happened down here because you know, we tend to think, "Oh, isn't the situation that the black man has had to put up with so terrible,

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but not here. It never happened here." And this is what happened as you were, probably remember, the 1930s in California was a time when there was a much migration in from Oklahoma and the dustbowl states. People were working for virtually nothing,

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they were being abused by the land owners, and their life was very difficult. A lot of them tried to organize into unions and there had been riots out here, there had been killings, and certainly the owners who had hired vigilante groups were

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trying to stamp out any kind of union organization or what they considered communist-inspired plotting. Into this comes, Langston Hughes. He moves -- the only black man in Carmel, I mean the only black man in Carmel -- he moves and he starts to write

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a story about the situation that is going on in California. And here are some of the things. He's here with Ella Winter working on this piece about the riots in California and Lincoln Stephens, the great crusading yellow journalist of the turn of

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the century, who is two years from his death. He's 70 years old now, and he would die in 1936. That summer was the last Hughes would ever see of the legendary Stephens, who died two years later at the age of 70. But he would never forget

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Steffi, as he called him, or Ella, called Peter by his friends, or their young son Pete, whom he later said were among my best friends in Carmel. They were among the last to see him before he escaped the vigilantes who came knocking on

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his door in the dead of night in late July of 1934. Fearing damage to Sullivan's Carmel property that he was living in if he stayed, Hughes fled to Sullivan's house in San Francisco. There had been two lynchings in California that

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year, and Langston Hughes did not want to risk his own blood on the fields. Over 40 years later, Ella Winter recalled sadly, "Langston came out of the migratory workers strike the only black man there. We thought he would go on with this kind of

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revolutionary activity, but he didn't. He went up the valley and lived with Noel Sullivan, a non-active Catholic, gentle gentlemen. I decided I had asked too much of a lonely black man in our funny little village of Carmel." Hughes' time in Carmel

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in certain ways had been a lonely battle, even though he showed no visible signs of it. A local friend, the neighbor Mary Short once said that she never saw him without a smile on his face. He did seem a peaceful rather than lonely fellow to

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her, walking along the rugged California beach with Greta, his German Shepherd companion, as Carmelites snapped their photos of him. Many of the local residents had taken to him and visits from such screen celebrities as Jimmy Cagney, who

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had been the emcee at Hughes' Scottsboro exhibit of photographs in San Francisco made Hughes a household name. That February he had celebrated his 32nd birthday with Una and Robinson Jeffers, Noel Sullivan and a few of the neighboring

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literati at Tor House, the home with a tower that Jeffers had built by the sea. Jeffers then famous for such books of verse as, "Apology for Bad Dreams," was as pessimistic about life as Langston Hughes was optimistic, but they seemed to balance each

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other and they had in common a great admiration for Walt Whitman. Quote from Hughes: "The artists and writers at Carmel were mostly a serious hard working lot and life was generally

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quiet," Hughes wrote later about his ten months at the seaside village. For most of the time, he was the only African-American writer or artists there. Nora Holt, the popular singer, who had left Shanghai shortly before he arrived there, stopped

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briefly in Carmel to see him, as did Roland Hayes during a West Coast concert tour, but the only black writer you saw was Wallace Thurman, his old friend who came to visit him from Hollywood. So, when he gets word that the vigilantes are coming after him

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again, he leaves. Laughing to keep from crying was what Hughes was doing with himself in Carmel that August 1934 when he packed his belongings for Reno, where he hoped to avoid any further threats from the two he had already had from the vigilantes.

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And he would talk very little about that experience with the possibility of vigilante violence in a very lonely, very small, very isolated Carmel. Meanwhile, he is about to go off to the Spanish Civil War. And he is about to write a column. And

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I guess when we come back, we will hear that, but now let's hear some music from that time, which is music of the great Duke Ellington, music very appropriate for Langston Hughes, who loved jazz and actually wrote some jazz oratorios.

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And this is Mort Marcus again and tonight we're doing a special celebration of the birthday of Langston Hughes who was born on February 1st, 1902. And he is also one of our celebrations for Black History Month, which began the day of

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his birthday, which is February 1st. I do want to make two public announcements: one, this Friday from February 9th at 7:30pm at the Thunderbird Bookstore in the Barnyard at Carmel, John Schatz and Vito Victor will be reading their

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work. John Schatz is a heart doctor or cardiologist and he sings and speaks of his patients, their stories of the practice of medicine and his work. He's reflective, entertaining and whimsical. And I can go along with that, I've

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read with John and had a great time. Vito Victor is one of the foremost authors and navel-gazers of our era, although entirely unknown on this planet. He started writing at the age of five in very large letters. He has always loved

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writing in his journal, especially on backpacking trips. In 1999, he was poetry editor of the Piedmont Literary Review. So, do go down and see John Schatz and Vito Victor next Friday, February the ninth at 7:30pm at the Thunderbird

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Bookstore in the Barnyard in Carmel. And immediately following this show on From the Bookshelf, which is hosted by the elegant Billy Harris, we will have Rusten Hogness reading, "Telephone Man," by Chris Crutcher. Rusten Hogness

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has read several times on From the Bookshelf and it's always brilliant, so be sure to tune in at 9pm right after this show for, again, more spoken arts on your KUSP community-sponsored station.

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I'm going to go on to Langston Hughes, and as usual I am falling behind, what else is new? I thought I would read some of these poems of his that deal, or again early poems, that deal with his travels. He really did travel quite a bit. Here's what

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he says when he first starts to travel. I THOUGHT IT WAS TANGIERS I WANTED I know now that Notre Dame is in Paris. And the Seine is more to me now than a wriggling line on a map or a name in travel

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stories. I know now there is a Crystal Palace in Antwerp, where a hundred women sell their naked bodies, and the night-lovers of sailors wait for men on docks in Genoa. I know now that a great golden moon like a picture-book moon really rises behind palm

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groves in Africa, and tom-toms do beat in village squares under the mango trees. I know now that Venice has a church dome and a network of canals, Tangiers a whiteness under sun. I thought it was Tangiers I wanted, or the gargoyles of Notre Dame, or the

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Crystal Palace in Antwerp, or the golden palm-grove moon in Africa, or a church dome and a network of canals. Happiness lies nowhere, some old fool said, if not within oneself. It's a sure thing Notre Dame is in Paris, but I thought it was

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Tangiers I wanted. And then beautiful little pieces like DREAMER. I take my dreams and make of them a bronze vase and a wide round fountain with a beautiful statue in its center. And a song

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with a broken heart and I ask you, do you understand my dreams? Sometimes you say you do, and sometimes you say you don't. Either way, it doesn't matter. I continue to dream. And yet at the same time, he can write poems like this:

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BAD MAN I'm a bad, bad man cause everybody tells me so. I'm a bad, bad man. Everybody tells me so. I takes ma meanness and ma licker everywhere I go. I beats ma wife and I beats ma side gal

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too. Beats ma wife and beats ma side gal too. Don't know why I do it but it keeps me from feeling' blue. I'm so bad I don't even want to be good. So bad, bad, bad I don't even want to be good. I'm goin' to de devil and I wouldn't go to

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heaven if I could. So these are poems again by Langston Hughes. And here is a poem called, "Valencia," which I read because it deals with the war he suddenly found himself involved with and it's called,

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"Moonlight in Valencia." Valencia was the capital of the official government during the Civil War, and the official government, as you may know, was the Republic and the fascists were the rebels in this case, the extreme right wing, and with

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Nazi troops and Italian fascist troops, they came in and destroyed the democracy of Spain in the late 30s. Langston Hughes, as I read in the little biography in the beginning, covered the Spanish Civil War for a time for a newspaper in

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America, African-American newspaper. And this is called MOONLIGHT IN VALENCIA: CIVIL WAR. Moonlight in Valencia: The moon meant planes. The planes meant death. And not heroic death. Like death on a poster: An

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officer in a pretty uniform or a nurse in a clean white dress-- But death with steel in your brain, powder burns on your face, blood slipping from your entrails, and you didn't laugh because there was no laughter in it. You didn't cry PROPAGANDA

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either. The propaganda was too much for everybody concerned. It hurt you in your guts. It was real as anything you ever saw in the movies: Moonlight... me caigo en la ostia! Bombers over Valencia.

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And one thing I didn't mention about Langston Hughes, which I will now, he also translated a lot of poetry especially from Spanish. He translated the poetry of Louis Aragon, he translated the poetry of Garcia Lorca, he translated the Gypsy

00:34:48.980 - 00:35:10.880

Ballads, which would come out as a book in the late 1940s. And about this time, he also was writing a lot of Madam Poems. And Madam becomes the first of his alter ego poems, or mask poems, he will towards the end of his life, actually from 1940

00:35:10.880 - 00:35:25.910

to one, write a whole load of newspaper columns on a character he creates called Jessie B. Simple, who is simply known as Simple and is sort of a black man on the street who has opinions of everything from church, women, politics, racism.

00:35:27.290 - 00:35:40.340

But here's one of the characters he creates in poetry, who is Madam. And I'll read several of these Madame Poems. This is" MADAM AND THE MINISTER. Reverend Butler came by my house last week. He said, have you got

00:35:40.340 - 00:35:58.370

a little time to speak? He said, I am interested in your soul. Has it been saved or is your heart stone-cold? I said, Reverend, I'll have you know I was baptized long ago. He said, what have you done since then? I said, none of your business,

00:35:58.370 - 00:36:19.520

friend. He said, Sister, have you back-slid? I said, it felt good, if I did. He said, Sister, come time to die, the Lord will surely ask you why! I'm gonna pray for you. Goodbye. I felt kinder sorry I talked that way after Reverend Butler went away.

00:36:19.880 - 00:36:36.620

So ain't in no mood for sin today. And here's MADAM AND THE NEWSBOY. Newsboy Knox, I buy the DEFENDER, these colored papers is a solid sender. I read all about the murdering news and who

00:36:36.620 - 00:36:53.600

killed who with lovesick blues. Then I read the lynchings and such, come to the conclusion, white folks ain't much. Then I turn over and read the scandal in the gossip column, initials for a handle. Then the pictures: Marva looks well, but if Joe was

00:36:53.600 - 00:37:11.780

my husband, I'd also look swell. It's just a matter of Who's Who. If I was Marva, I'd be in the papers too, wouldn't you? Here's MADAM AND THE INSURANCE MAN. Insurance man, I heard his knock but he couldn't get in cause my

00:37:11.780 - 00:37:29.840

door was locked. We could go Tuesday came back again. This time I thought, well, I'll let him in. Insurance man said, it's paying time. Madam, you are six weeks behind. I said, mister, just let it slumber. I'll pay in full when I hit the number.

00:37:30.740 - 00:37:49.760

Insurance man said, suppose you die, who would bury you? I said, why? And here's a long poem on Harlem. He wrote, oh, maybe around ten poems about Harlem itself. This one is called, "The

00:37:49.760 - 00:38:02.120

Heart of Harlem." Again, he is one of the seminal figures of the Harlem Renaissance, this great movement of music and literature and drama and plays that grows through the end of the 20s and through the 30s.

00:38:03.860 - 00:38:17.700

And here is his, THE HEART OF HARLEM, written during the 1930s. The buildings in Harlem are brick and stone and the streets are long and wide, but Harlem's much more than these alone,

00:38:18.360 - 00:38:35.160

Harlem is what's inside. It's a song with a minor refrain, it's a dream you keep dreaming again. It's a tear you turn into a smile. It's the sunrise you know is coming after a while. It's the shoes that you get half-soled twice. It's the kid

00:38:35.160 - 00:38:54.630

you hope will grow up nice. It's the hand that's working all day long. It's prayer that keeps you going along, that's the Heart of Harlem. It's Joe Louis and Dr. W.E.B., a stevedore, a porter, Marian Anderson, and me. It's Father Divine and the music of

00:38:54.630 - 00:39:09.630

Earl Hines, Adam Powell in Congress, our drives on bus lines. It's Dorothy Maynor and it's Billie Holiday, the lectures at the Schomburg and the Apollo down the way. It's Father Shelton Bishop and shouting Mother Horne. It's the

00:39:09.630 - 00:39:28.050

Rennie and the Savoy where new dances are born. It's Canada Lee's penthouse on Five-Fifty-Five. It's Small's Paradise and Jimmy's little dive. It's 409 Edgecombe or a cold-water walk-up flat, but it's where I live and it's where

00:39:28.050 - 00:39:44.280

my love is at deep in the Heart of Harlem. It's the pride all Americans know. It's the faith God gave us long ago. It's the strength to make our dreams come true. It's a feeling warm and friendly given to you. It's that girl with a rhythmical walk.

00:39:44.520 - 00:40:02.070

It's my boy with a jive in his talk. It's the man with muscles of steel. It's the right to be free a people never will yield. A dream, a song, half-soled shoes, dancing shoes a tear, a smile, the blues, sometimes the blues mixed with the memory and

00:40:02.070 - 00:40:25.950

forgiveness of our wrong. But more than that, it's freedom, guarded for the kids who came along, folks, that's the Heart of Harlem. Here's MADAM AND THE FORTUNE TELLER.

00:40:25.000 - 00:40:47.740

Fortune teller looked in my hand. Fortune teller said, Madam, it's just good luck you ain't dead. Fortune teller squeezed my hand. She squinted u her eyes. Fortune teller said Madam, you ain't wise. I said please explain to me what yo

00:40:47.740 - 00:41:07.420

mean by that? She said, you mus recognize where your fortune' at. I said, Madam, tell me, fo she was Madam, too, where is m fortune at? I'll pay some min to you. She said, your fortune honey, lies right in yourself You ain't gonna find it o

00:41:07.420 - 00:41:24.730

nobody else's shelf. I said what man you're talking 'bout She said, Madam! Be calm, fo one more dollar and a half, I'l read your other palm So not only do the Madam poems, you know, to me show the humor

00:41:25.150 - 00:41:42.760

of Hughes, which you really see in the simple stories and columns, but also this, I hope you really hear how I'm reading these things. They really capture a cadence and a sense of spoken language which he had a great ear for.

00:41:44.140 - 00:42:01.830

Here's MADAM AND THE CENSUS MAN. The census man, the day he came round, wanted my name to put it down. I said, Johnson, Alberta K. But he hated to write the K that way. He said, what does K stand for? I said, K, and

00:42:01.830 - 00:42:21.180

nothing more. He said, I'm going to put it, K-A-Y. I said if you do, you lie. My mother christened me Alberta K. You leave my name just that way! He said Mrs., with a snort, just a K makes your name too short. I said, I don't give a damn! Leave

00:42:21.180 - 00:42:41.830

me and my name just like I am. Furthermore, rub out that Mrs. too. I'll have you know I'm Madam to you. And here's MADAM AND DAUGHTER Mama, please brush off my coat. I'm going down the street. Where

00:42:41.830 - 00:42:57.340

are you going, daughter? To see my sugar-sweet. Who is your sugar, honey? Turn around, I'll brush behind. He is that young man, mama, I can't get off my mind. Daughter, once upon a time- let me brush your hem- your father, yes, he was the

00:42:57.340 - 00:43:17.080

one! I felt like that about him. But it was a long time ago he up and when his way. I hope that wild young son-of- a-gun rots in hell today. Mama, dad couldn't be still young. He was young yesterday. He was young when he- turn around so I can brush your

00:43:17.080 - 00:43:44.070

back, I say! So Hughes does not flinch from the ironies and cruelties in his community, as well as his songs of hope and his very rhetorical songs about hope and the wonder of the everyday world. It's

00:43:44.070 - 00:44:10.170

amazing how fast time goes by. Langston Hughes wrote plays, he wrote scripts, he wrote music. In the late 1940s, his political connections and his writings about the Soviet Union really began to catch up with him. And he finally was called before the

00:44:10.170 - 00:44:33.600

House Un-American Activities in February of 1953. And it's a very unfortunate situation for which many people have not forgiven him. But that whole part of our history, of course, is a story of how people react under pressure and crisis,

00:44:34.380 - 00:44:51.540

really facing the United States government and either not wanting to go along with telling about their friends and people they know, or just really wanting to protect the Constitution, which, at that point did not allow questioning

00:44:51.540 - 00:45:12.360

about one's political sympathies. Many, many popular Hollywood actors such as Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou, really did name names and did shun all of the people who had leftist leanings even though they were not communists. There were many

00:45:12.390 - 00:45:26.190

other people, however, who did not have leftist leanings and just refused to answer the questions put to them on the basis that they had rights under the Constitution that they were protecting for all Americans. These people suffered

00:45:26.490 - 00:45:43.830

dramatically. When Langston Hughes went down to talk to the House Un-American Activities Committee, Joseph McCarthy, showing a sensitivity that he had not shown before asked to see Hughes in his private chambers, and they met for

00:45:43.830 - 00:46:03.960

around four hours the day before he was to testify, and they hammered out a deal. It seems as though McCarthy was sensitive to the situation in the African-American community and he did not want to take a prominent American writer and

00:46:03.990 - 00:46:22.260

destroy him with his committee. He thought it would do his committee much more damage than it would do him good. And so, in February 1953, he worked out a deal with Langston Hughes, that if Langston Hughes admitted he was a communist, and if he

00:46:22.260 - 00:46:47.700

repented this, then he, Joseph McCarthy, would not ask him to name names, and he would absolve him. So, Langston Hughes thought it over and took the deal, and the next day came into the Un-American hearings, and Roy Cohn, who was a very, very tough

00:46:47.700 - 00:47:08.460

interrogator, interrogated him, but Hughes answered in a very laconic fashion that he had had revolutionary sympathies, that he did praise the Soviet Union, that he had written works, and actually one was brought in as evidence, that he had talked

00:47:08.460 - 00:47:24.720

about the wonders of communism as opposed to the United States, although he said he never advocated to overthrow of the United States. This was all in single sentences. And then he asked if he repented, he did say that he repented and all of

00:47:24.720 - 00:47:45.000

those attitudes were long forgotten. He then was excused. He asked them, am I excused now? They said yes. And he never did name names, so that is the situation with Langston Hughes before the McCarthy committee. Now at the same time, another

00:47:45.120 - 00:48:00.330

prominent black writer and I think one of the great geniuses of American life, a sociologist and Professor by the name of W.E.B. Du Bois who had written a book that, if you have never read it out there, I suggest you read it, it is gorgeously

00:48:00.330 - 00:48:18.000

written, it is a wonderful work called, "The Souls of Black Folk," was also being pursued by the McCarthy committee and was being shunned by a lot of people because he was really being torpedoed. And Langston Hughes, this is before the McCarthy

00:48:18.000 - 00:48:38.190

hearings, defended Du Bois very, very vigorously in the press, saying that this was extremely unfair and Du Bois was one of the great writers of the black experience in America. Again, if you're interested in this, it's W period, E period, B period, Du

00:48:38.190 - 00:48:55.050

Bois, D-U, capital B, O-I-S, Du Bois is his final name, "The Souls of the Black Folk," I'm sure you can find it in any bookstore in paperback, "The Souls of the Black Folk" He wrote many other books, but that one is extraordinary.

00:48:56.560 - 00:49:17.320

So where do we go from here? Well, I guess we go to 1951. This year, and I hoped I would read some of it I couldn't- He wrote a book of poems that was really one long sequence of poems called, "Montage of a Dream Deferred," which had

00:49:19.120 - 00:49:36.040

elaborate side columns, directing- no, not this one. It really tried in a group of short poems to do this and here's what he says about "Montage of a Dream Deferred" in 1951: "In terms of current African-American popular music,

00:49:36.250 - 00:49:51.580

and the sources from which it has progressed, jazz, ragtime, swing, blues, boogie-woogie, and bebop, this poem on contemporary Harlem, like bebop, is marked by conflicting changes, sudden nuances, sharp and impudent interjections, broken rhythms

00:49:51.700 - 00:50:03.160

and passages, sometimes in the matter of the jam session, sometimes the popular song punctuated by the riffs, runs, breaks and distortion of the music of a community in transition."

00:50:03.450 - 00:50:25.180

And that's, "Montage of a Dream Deferred," in 1951. Also in 1951, and I'll just be able to read part of this, he writes: BALLAD OF NEGRO HISTORY, and I'll read in just part of that. There is so much to write about in the Negro race. And on each

00:50:25.180 - 00:50:38.410

page of history glows a dusky face. Ancient Pharaohs come to mind a way back in B.C. Ethiopia's jewel hand writes a scroll for me. It was a black man who bore the Cross for Christ at Cavalry.

00:50:39.080 - 00:50:56.750

There is so much to write about in the Negro race. Though now of Ghana's Empire there remains no trace, once Africa's great cultures lighted Europe's dark as Mandingo and Songhai cradled learning's ark before the Moors is crossed into Spain to leave

00:50:56.750 - 00:51:12.060

their mark. There is so much to write about the Negro race. Ere are the ships of slavery sailed the seas of dark disgrace, once Antar added words to poetry's lore, and Juan Latino search the

00:51:12.060 - 00:51:25.510

medieval heart's deep core, all this before black men in chains at Jamestown were put ashore. There is so much to write about the Negro race, so many thrilling stories time cannot erase. Chrispus Attucks' blow

00:51:25.510 - 00:51:42.640

for freedom, Denmark Vesey's too. Sojourner Truth, Fred Douglas, and the heroes John Brown knew, before the Union Armies gave Black men proud uniforms of blue. 1863, Emancipation! The Negro race began its mighty struggle

00:51:42.640 - 00:52:00.370

for a rightful place in the making of America to whose young lan it gave Booker T. and Carver -- each genius born a slave -- yet foreordained to greatness on the crest of freedom's wave. Paul Lawrence Dunbar penned his rhymes of lyric lace -- all the

00:52:00.370 - 00:52:15.040

sadness and the humor of the Negro race. To the words of colored congressman, the Halls of Congress rang. Handy wrote the blues. Williams and Walker sang, still on Southern trees today dark bodies hang.

00:52:15.840 - 00:52:35.460

The story is one of struggle for the Negro race. But in spite of all the lynching ropes, we've marched on to take our place: Woodson, Negro History Week. Du Bois, Johnson, Drew, Cullen, Manor, Bunche. The cultural record grew. Edith Sampson went

00:52:35.460 - 00:52:47.940

around the world to tell the nations what she knew, and Josephine came home from France to claim an equal chance through song and dance. There is so much to write about to sing about, to shout about in

00:52:47.940 - 00:53:06.920

the Negro race! On each page of history America sees my face. On each page of history, we leave a shining trace. On each page of history, my race, my race, my race! And I think that's a good place to end our evening reading from

00:53:06.920 - 00:53:28.790

the works and talking about the life of this very complex and interesting writer, Langston Hughes, who was born, again, on February 1st, 1902. He died in 1967, his last years spent talking about the Freedom Riders, half his feet were in

00:53:28.790 - 00:53:46.220

the camp of Martin Luther King, but the other foot was in the camp of Malcolm X. He did not necessarily believe in sit-ins. He thought that in the end, maybe some actual violence or action would have to be taken if the African-American would

00:53:46.280 - 00:54:05.180

achieve any kind of equality in this world. I would exhort you to go and read the Simple Stories. I was going to read some things from Simples, Uncle Sam, there are many other Simple books, these columns he wrote from 1942 through the 50s. "The

00:54:05.750 - 00:54:23.960

Best of Simple" I would certainly have you do. They're short stories from plays, just enormous amount of work that I would urge you to pay attention to. But meanwhile, remember, this is Black History Month also. And it's just perfect to

00:54:23.960 - 00:54:39.950

have kicked it off with Langston Hughes whose birthday is the very first day of this month. Please stay tuned now to the wonderful Billy Harris's From the Bookshelf. Tonight, Rusten Hogness will be reading, "Telephone Man," by Chris

00:54:39.950 - 00:54:51.470

Crutcher. Rusten Hogness has read several times on From the Bookshelf, and it's always brilliant so be sure to tune in right now. This is Mort Marcus, I'll see you in several weeks.