Langston Hughes – Lecture and Poetry Reading – Illinois University – March 18, 1957
The voice of Langston Hughes this weekend, recorded at Illinois University on March 18, 1957 where he gave a lecture on the art of Writing and read several examples of his poetry, most notably his Jazz Poetry which Hughes has been acknowledged as its originator.
Langston Hughes is probably best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period that “the Negro was in vogue”, which was later paraphrased as “when Harlem was in vogue.”
Growing up in a series of Midwestern towns, Hughes became a prolific writer at an early age. He moved to New York City as a young man, where he made his career. He graduated from high school in Cleveland, Ohio, and soon began studies at Columbia University in New York City. Although he dropped out, he gained notice from New York publishers, first in The Crisis magazine and then from book publishers, and became known in the creative community in Harlem. He eventually graduated from Lincoln University. In addition to poetry, Hughes wrote plays and short stories. He also published several nonfiction works. From 1942 to 1962, as the civil rights movement was gaining traction, he wrote an in-depth weekly column in a leading black newspaper, The Chicago Defender.
Langston Hughes’ life has been portrayed in film and stage productions since the late 20th century. In Looking for Langston (1989), British filmmaker Isaac Julien claimed him as a black gay icon—Julien thought that Hughes’ sexuality had historically been ignored or downplayed. Film portrayals of Hughes include Gary LeRoi Gray’s role as a teenage Hughes in the short subject film Salvation (2003) (based on a portion of his autobiography The Big Sea), and Daniel Sunjata as Hughes in the Brother to Brother (2004). Hughes’ Dream Harlem, a documentary by Jamal Joseph, examines Hughes’ works and environment.
Paper Armor (1999) by Eisa Davis and Hannibal of the Alps (2005) by Michael Dinwiddie are plays by African-American playwrights that address Hughes’s sexuality. Spike Lee’s 1996 film Get on the Bus, included a black gay character, played by Isaiah Washington, who invokes the name of Hughes and punches a homophobic character, saying: “This is for James Baldwin and Langston Hughes.”
Hughes was also featured prominently in a national campaign sponsored by the Center for Inquiry (CFI) known as African Americans for Humanism.
Hughes’ Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz, written in 1960, was performed for the first time in March 2009 with specially composed music by Laura Karpman at Carnegie Hall, at the Honor festival curated by Jessye Norman in celebration of the African-American cultural legacy. Ask Your Mama is the centerpiece of “The Langston Hughes Project”,[107] a multimedia concert performance directed by Ron McCurdy, professor of music in the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California.The European premiere of The Langston Hughes Project, featuring Ice-T and McCurdy, took place at the Barbican Centre, London, on November 21, 2015, as part of the London Jazz Festival mounted by music producers Serious.
The novel Harlem Mosaics (2012) by Whit Frazier depicts the friendship between Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, and tells the story of how their friendship fell apart during their collaboration on the play Mule Bone.
On September 22, 2016, his poem “I, Too” was printed on a full page of The New York Times in response to the riots of the previous day in Charlotte, North Carolina.
If you aren’t familiar, or are just getting acquainted or listening to a voice you haven’t heard in a while, Press Play and immerse yourself.
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