December 14, 2024 • 28 mins
The Black Effect Presents... BLK LIT!
This episode of BLK LIT delves into the life and legacy of Langston Hughes, a pivotal figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Dr Carmaletta Williams - CEO, of Black Archives of Mid-Amercia joins the conversation to explore Langston's early life, struggles, and the hustle that defined his journey as a poet. It highlights the cultural impact of his work, the intersection of music and poetry, and the themes of faith and skepticism in his writing. The episode concludes with a tribute to Nikki Giovanni, emphasizing the enduring influence of Hughes' art on future generations.
Learn More: The Black Archives of Mid-America
Read: Langston Hughes in the Classroom: "Do Nothin' till You Hear from Me"
My Dear Boy: Carrie Hughes Letters to Langston Hughes, 1926-1938
Connect with the Host: Jacquees Thomas @_ThatsPeace
Join The Collective Writing Community BLKWritersRoom.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Jacquees Thomas, and you're listening to Black Lit,
a podcast about black literature and the stories behind the
storytellers length and Hughes. Now that's a name that might
conjure up some images of the Harlem Renaissance, powerful poetry
(00:22):
and a voice that spoke to a whole generation. But
before the accolades, before the iconic lines, there was a
young man with a powerful dream, a man who was
set out on a journey as rich and as complex
as the poetry he penned.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I Too.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Am America, who wrote that.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
What you just heard was a quote from The Great Debaters,
the award winning two thousand and seven directed by Denzel Washington,
where Denzel delivers a line inspired by Lanson Hughes, I
Too am America. That single phrase, drawn from Hughes' iconic
(01:16):
poem I Too, published in nineteen twenty six, still resonates
today as both a declaration and a form of defiance.
It's a statement of belonging, one that bridges the divide
between exclusion and inclusion. It is a black man claiming
(01:39):
his rightful place in a nation that often tried to
deny him. I Too was written during the height of
the Harlem Renaissance. The poem describes a plague that is racism.
It is a poetic protest expressing how he, as a
black man, experiences this outright discrimination, and how despite not
(02:04):
being offered a seat at the quote unquote table, he
does not fret, for he knows how beautiful he is
and how such a beauty cannot be ignored forever. The
line tomorrow, I'll be at the table reinforces this belief
(02:24):
that there is hope for America because he too is American. Oh,
let America be America again, the land that never has
been yet but yet must be, the land where every
man is free, the land that's mine the poor man.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Let it be the dream it used to be. America
was never America to me.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Today, Hughes is celebrated as one of the most significant
voices of the Harlem Renaissance, a poet of the people
and a cultural architect and icon. But who exactly was
Lenggston Hughes? What experiences did he encounter? What was it
like being born an only child in Joplin, Missouri, in
(03:13):
the early nineteen hundreds to divorce parents, His childhood was fractured.
His father, a man who had dreams. He he just
didn't believe he could reach here in America, so he
escaped to Mexico, abandoning Langston and his mother.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Well, my father was very anti Negro, although he was negroing.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
And to add to that feeling of rejection, his mother,
who was often absent in his life, left him to
be raised mostly by his grandmother in a near destitute
upbringing in.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
This great, big, lonesome town. I might starve for a year,
but that extra day would get me down.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
In nineteen twenty five, Hughes was bussing tables in a Washington,
DC hotel and he slipped a few poems to the
famous poet Rachel Lindsay.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Lengthy. News was a hustler. He wasn't just a poet.
He was a busboy, a seaman, a cook, anything that
allowed him to survive while pursuing his craft. He wrote
between shifts and during long nights, determined to make his
voice heard. His life was a patchwork of odd jobs,
(04:38):
stitched together by a relentless passion for storytelling. But it
wasn't just about survival. That hustle, that grit is what
makes his story so powerful. It's why his work filled
with themes of identity, resilience, and chasing your dreams, finds
(04:59):
its way into classrooms across the country till this day.
But how does a hustling poet who spent his night
scribbling down on napkins and diners become one of the
most taught poets in American classrooms? How did Langston Hughes,
the seamen, the cook, the bus boy transform into the
(05:22):
Langston Hughes that we know today, the voice of dreams, struggles,
and resilience for students everywhere. Langston had an incredible gift
of seeing the beauty and the pain of life and
putting it into words. His poetry captured not just his
(05:42):
own experiences, but the posts of a people. When he
wrote about the rivers in Mississippi, or the Congo or
the Nile, it wasn't just as locations, but as the
history of black resilience. Dream defers doesn't just ask questions,
it demands that you confront it. Mother to son is
(06:06):
like a warm, encouraging arm around your shoulder, telling you
to keep climbing. And that's why, decades later, teachers bring
him into classrooms. Hughes was a bridge to history and literature.
But also to empathy and understanding. His work wasn't just beautiful,
(06:26):
it was teachable and relatable, perfect for young minds learning
about America's diversity and struggles, about dreams and justice, about
what it means to fight and hope and build. The
language is rhythmic and clear. His ideas are timeless, but
(06:48):
the words are simple enough to reach a middle schooler.
He wrote, hold fast to your dreams, for without them,
life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. You
don't need a dictionary for that, because you can feel
it in your soul. As we explore the life and
(07:11):
legacy of Langston Hughes, we had the privilege of speaking
with doctor Carmeletta Williams, the current CEO of the Black
Archives of Mid America and a scholar with three decades
of experience and a passion for Hughes's work. She shared
a deep understanding of his life and gave historical contacts
(07:34):
and insight into what made his voice so revered. Her
ability to connect Langston's work to the broader Black experience
and contemporary conversations made her an extraordinary resource, and we
were truly honored to have her with us and to
share this conversation with you.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
When he was telling stories than the blues genre, and
he was telling the story that the people who made.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Him famous that they were living.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
So he was with the folks he hung out and
churches and as well as in bars, so absorbing all
aspects of the culture.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
And that's what he wrote about. The Negro Mother is powerful.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
Because it hit so many people and they're like, yeah,
my mother's story is a little bit different, but basically
this is her tale too.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Now through my children, young and free, I realized the blessings.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Deny to me.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Of course my mother was Bangstern's generation are after. But
I saw those stairs, I saw that journey life for
me ain't been no crystal statics, had tax in it, boards,
throwing up places with no carpet on the floor.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Fair.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
So I think that he wrote about real life and
that people didn't imagine. Plus he was in the time
he didn't want to take the art so far. I
feel that the regular folk, the common folks, the what
Langston called the negro lois down so that they could
feel it, they could accept that, and then that was
(09:24):
what made him famous. Now also we know about his
relationship with white folks, is that he.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Didn't cater to them.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
Is even though he depended on people like the god
Mother to give him finances and to get him published
and to you know, and he stayed in their homes,
he still wrote his art and he still told about
those lives. And so he bifurcated in a means that
he could operate moviesily in both worlds. And that's been
(09:57):
said of zor two, so we can get to that
they moved easily through all kinds of cultures, but they
stay true to who they were, to their blackness, to
their history, to their people.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
And those are the stories that he wrote about.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Hughes said, I want to write so that everyone can understand,
and he did. That's why you find him in the
pages of school books, inspiring kids to dream big, to
ask questions, to see the world for what it is
and for what it could be. He was an artist
(10:36):
who refused to separate black culture from his art. To him,
jazz and blues weren't just background music. They wore the
heartbeat and soul of his poetry. And that's what makes
Langston Hughes so revolutionary and enduring. He wasn't writing to
(10:56):
impress an exclusive elite. He was writing to connect, to
give voice to the hustlers, to the dreamers, and the
preachers who might otherwise go unheard. His words carry the
rhythm of the streets, the posts of jazz, and the
soul of the everyday person trying to carve out a
(11:18):
piece of the world. Langston understood that poetry wasn't just
for libraries or lecture halls. It was for the people.
It was for the mother humming blues while she cooked,
for the busker playing a saxophone on a Harlem corner,
for the worker coming home late, dreaming of a better tomorrow.
(11:41):
Hughes speaks directly to the human condition, raw, real, and
most importantly accessible, breaking down the barriers between high art
and popular culture.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
We know where he came from. We know that he
came from spare and meager beginnings. I tear up every
time I read about him having to put newspaper in
his shoes, which were usually women's shoes that they had
gotten someplace in the winter time because they didn't have
any money, having to live with Auntie and uncle because
(12:14):
they didn't have any money. And he didn't just say, okay,
I'm above this now. Langston took care of his mother
till she died, and in many places along that road
he had to do it out to take care of her.
He's a man who searched his whole life for a
close relationship with his brother and died without actually having
(12:36):
achieved that.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
So he knew what life was like.
Speaker 5 (12:41):
He knew what people were really going through, and he
didn't discard it. It's like, yeah, I'm writing in limousines
to the met now, So he didn't live that being
the controlling factor. It was always who he was at
that time, where he came from, and who the people were.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
When it's not a miss.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
I don't think that when he left and moved to
New York. He moved to Harlem, you know, and he
was right next door to the YMCA. When he died,
he lived right next door to the YMCA, So that
wasn't an accidental cycle. I think that was always his
plan was to be with the people, and he talked
(13:22):
about being with his people and what he could do
for them. So I think that we remember him now,
we read him now because we still see ourselves in
his work. We see our lives, we see our history,
we see our families, we see our neighbors in what
he wrote, because that's what he did. He took those
ordinary people and made wonderful stories.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
He told their stories, he made up stories about them.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
And that's why I think it lasts so long, and
it's still lasting now.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Beautiful also is a son.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Beautiful also are the souls of my people?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Are my people.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
This universality is why his poetry seamlessly transitions into music,
influencing not only jazz and blues, but laying the groundwork
for hip hop. Hugh's rhythms, cadences, and themes can be
compared to the verses of nineties conscious rappers like Nas
Common and Toothpop, who, like Hughes, spoke to the struggles
(14:30):
and dreams of their communities. His poems are the spiritual
ancestors of rap lyrics, the original anthems of resilience and pride.
Lanxon Hughes made art for the people, for his people,
and that's why his influence indoors. His poetry doesn't just
sit on a page. It moves, It sings, it marches.
(14:54):
It's very much alive today as it was in a
Harlem Renaissance, proving that the rhythm of the streets is timeless,
you are listening to black lids. To truly grasp the
(15:14):
depth of Langston Hughes's insight, we must look back to
a defining moment in his young life, a moment that
shaped the lens through which he would view the world.
Envision a young Langston now living with his godfaring aunt
and pipe laying uncle after the passing of his grandmother.
Although he loved his aunt and uncle, he was just
(15:37):
thirteen when his aunt brought him to church to get saved.
He sat nervously in a church in his hometown in Lawrence, Kansas, waiting, waiting.
It was supposed to be a moment of salvation, waiting, waiting,
a rite of passage into faith. The congregation full of
(16:00):
fervor and hope, waiting waiting for Langston to join the
procession of young souls saved by God, and his aunt
desperately awaiting to affirm her hope.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Lengthen set palm, sweating, waiting, waity, searching. He wanted to
feel something, anything, that would affirm the presence of a
higher power, but that moment never came. Eventually, under immense pressure,
he walked to the altar not out of faith, but
(16:45):
to fulfill his aunt's expectations and to end the spectacle.
That night, alone in his room, Lengthton cried not tears
of joy, but of profound disillusionment. He had been searching
for God and instead found the weight of expectation and pretense.
(17:10):
The walls were thin, and his aunt heard his tears
and assumed they were of glory. This was a moment
that would stay with him, shaping his understanding of faith
community in the gap between societal norms and individual truth.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
We know that story because he's hearing and he's hearing,
and he's hearing that all of these children are all
going to be saved, and he knows some of them
are faking it because they talk about it. And then
when it comes to the point where he's last kid's
city and this service is not going to end if
he doesn't, then he goes to the altar and he
(17:55):
pretends to have seen Jesus. And that night, well, you know,
when he goes home, he hears his auntie and Oglerie
talking and she talks about how proud she is of
him for having found God, and chal Ree doesn't care
at all.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
You know, he's not that religious person.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
But then he feels guilt because he had lied to
people who had been so good to him. And I
think that's the reason that when he needed God, he
didn't come to He wasn't there, he didn't come to him.
So I think that's why we see this mixture of
emotions when it comes to religion in his work, because
(18:37):
we see those women that he writes about who actually
retreat to the church because their lives, their personal lives
are so heavy and they can't deal with themselves.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
They go to the church. They retreat to the church.
But we also see.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
Him going to church, and he has a good time
when he goes, but he goes to listen to the
music and listen to the people, not necessarily to connected God.
So we have then this split, this bifurcation of this
guy who was raised in the people that the person
that he loved most anti read, who took care of
(19:14):
him and took care of his grandmother, wanted to embed
this religion in him, and then him thinking as a
child that God didn't become when I needed it. So
what does he do with that? Well, he keeps going
to church in different churches, and somehow, I think at
(19:34):
times he was pretending just to be going for the
music because he got hurt of music other places, but
he also wanted to be in that community of blackness.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
This pivotal experience would later ring throughout Hughes's work. His
poetry often wrestled with the tension between belief and skepticism,
hope and despair. In poems like The Negro Speaks of
Rivers and Goodbye Christ, he grapples with the spiritual and
(20:09):
existential questions that define not just his life, but the
lives of many. He understood the beauty and the power
of faith, but he also saw how it could be
weaponized or hollowed out by human failings. This experience marks
(20:30):
a consistent conflict that shows up throughout Langston's work. Later on,
after visiting the Soviet Union and seeing socialism working. Here
are a few words from the poem Goodbye Christ, where
Hughes calls for a rethinking of dominant American beliefs. Listen, Christ,
(20:58):
you did all right in your day, I reckon, but
that day's gone now. They ghosted you up A swell
story too, called it Bible, but it's dead now. The
popes and the preachers have made much money from him.
Linx and Hughes' search for truth beginning at that church.
(21:18):
Fuel was never about easy answers. It was about embracing
the complexity of life, the struggles and contradictions that make
us human. And in doing so, he became the unchallenged
spokesman of the black experience.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
He wanted to be with those black folks in the church.
You wanted to share their life stories. You wanted to
hear their testimonies, and he wanted them to sing that
story out so that he could absorb that. And then
on the other hand, you know when he talks about music,
he talks a lot about the blues, and the blues
he says of this stories of those people that starts
(22:02):
in their gut and tells their stories. And when he
needed help, it was the people. And when he wanted
to fill hole, he went.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
To the people.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
It was the folk that helped Bangston. The folks stayed there,
the folk who helped him to reach his goals and
realize its dreams. So for me, I think Blangston's religion
and his non religion.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
We're all a totally merchant into black life.
Speaker 5 (22:34):
This is what it feels to be black and he
wants to feel all aspects of it.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Chocolate Darling out of a dream, born uns into the
Coco Brown whom pomegranate lived, pride of the town.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Lazy Hughes and the Death Poet.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
What you just heard was Yassin Bay, the artist known
as most Death, reciting Hughes's Harlem Sweeties on an episode
of HBO's Deaf Poetry Jam. It's a powerful connection between
two eras, but also transcends time, where poetry becomes music,
becomes culture, becomes life itself. Hughes wasn't just a writer,
(23:16):
he was a witness. He documented the Black experience and
all its complexity, the pain and the perseverance, but also
the beauty. And then, like Harlem Sweeties, he celebrates the
beauty of Black women, the laughter and the loss. He
(23:38):
gave dignity to lives ignored, carving out spaces for those
stories to be heard.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
Many of my poems are poems about the problems of
American democracy in general, as applied to race.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Leston Hughes is one of the greatest poets to ever exist.
I am fed up with Jim crow Laws.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
People are cruel.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I'm afraid who ron.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Zyon the Weapon the Lord formed against those I prefer
the Lord mathematics.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Sob Jim Crows a poet like Blaxton Hughes and can't lose.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
The very roots of hip hop are in Langston Hughes's work,
the flow of his words, the raw honesty of his storytelling.
They formed the blueprint for artists like Kendrick Andre three thousand,
Black Thought, Most Death. They embodied Hughes' core sensibility to
take the everyday struggles and triumphs of black life and
(24:33):
turn them into art. Leanthon Hughes was a poet of truth.
He didn't shy away from the tension between faith and doubt,
between family and interdependence. In fact, his work often peeled
back the layers of social norms to reveal what lies
beneath humanity. Lengthton didn't just write about the world, He
(24:55):
changed how we see it. He turned the Harlem streets
into poetry, transformed jazz and blues into structure, and made
a legacy that flows like the mighty River from the
Harlem Renaissance to the beats of hip hop. But before
the poet, before the legacy, there was the revival, a
(25:19):
moment of silence, a moment doubt and the moment when
Lens and Hughes began to discover his truth. It was
the birth of a vision, not bound but what should be,
but by what is?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
You had to risk it all, you had to go.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Bro.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Now, I what I would have likes to what I
would have w duvoir, what I would have Fredrick Douglass.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
As my team and I were wrapping up the edit
and final selects for this episode, we received word of
Nikki Giovanni's passing, so in honor of her, we end
on a poem she wrote, for links and heres, rest
(26:12):
and peace to you both. Thank you for your literature,
your art, your words, your poetry, and for your ancestral mentorship.
(26:33):
We are grateful.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
If I took a rainbow ride, I could be there
by your side. Metaphor has its point of view, illusion
and illusion to meter verse, classical free poems, or what
you do to Me?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Join us next week as we explore more of Linkston's
life and work. Black Lit is a Black Effect original
series in partnership with iHeartMedia. Is written and created by myself,
Jack Queis Thomas and executive produce alongside Dolly s Bishop.
(27:12):
Chanelle Collins is the Director of Production, Head of Talent
Nicole Spence, writer producer Jason Torres, Our researcher and producer
is Jabari Davis, and the mix and sound design is
by the Humble Duane Crawford Special thanks to doctor CROMLETTA.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Williams.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Gratitude is an action, so I have to give praise
to those who took the time out to write a review.
Please keep sharing and we will promise to bring more
writers and greater episodes to you. Also, if you're looking
to become a writer or in search of a supportive
writing community, join me for a free creative writing session
(27:52):
on my website black writers Room dot com, BLK writer's
Room dot com, or hit me up directly from more
details at Underscore t h A T S P E
A c E.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
That's piece
My name is Jacquees Thomas, and you're listening to Black Lit,
a podcast about black literature and the stories behind the
storytellers length and Hughes. Now that's a name that might
conjure up some images of the Harlem Renaissance, powerful poetry
(00:22):
and a voice that spoke to a whole generation. But
before the accolades, before the iconic lines, there was a
young man with a powerful dream, a man who was
set out on a journey as rich and as complex
as the poetry he penned.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I Too.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Am America, who wrote that.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
What you just heard was a quote from The Great Debaters,
the award winning two thousand and seven directed by Denzel Washington,
where Denzel delivers a line inspired by Lanson Hughes, I
Too am America. That single phrase, drawn from Hughes' iconic
(01:16):
poem I Too, published in nineteen twenty six, still resonates
today as both a declaration and a form of defiance.
It's a statement of belonging, one that bridges the divide
between exclusion and inclusion. It is a black man claiming
(01:39):
his rightful place in a nation that often tried to
deny him. I Too was written during the height of
the Harlem Renaissance. The poem describes a plague that is racism.
It is a poetic protest expressing how he, as a
black man, experiences this outright discrimination, and how despite not
(02:04):
being offered a seat at the quote unquote table, he
does not fret, for he knows how beautiful he is
and how such a beauty cannot be ignored forever. The
line tomorrow, I'll be at the table reinforces this belief
(02:24):
that there is hope for America because he too is American. Oh,
let America be America again, the land that never has
been yet but yet must be, the land where every
man is free, the land that's mine the poor man.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Let it be the dream it used to be. America
was never America to me.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Today, Hughes is celebrated as one of the most significant
voices of the Harlem Renaissance, a poet of the people
and a cultural architect and icon. But who exactly was
Lenggston Hughes? What experiences did he encounter? What was it
like being born an only child in Joplin, Missouri, in
(03:13):
the early nineteen hundreds to divorce parents, His childhood was fractured.
His father, a man who had dreams. He he just
didn't believe he could reach here in America, so he
escaped to Mexico, abandoning Langston and his mother.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Well, my father was very anti Negro, although he was negroing.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
And to add to that feeling of rejection, his mother,
who was often absent in his life, left him to
be raised mostly by his grandmother in a near destitute
upbringing in.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
This great, big, lonesome town. I might starve for a year,
but that extra day would get me down.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
In nineteen twenty five, Hughes was bussing tables in a Washington,
DC hotel and he slipped a few poems to the
famous poet Rachel Lindsay.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Lengthy. News was a hustler. He wasn't just a poet.
He was a busboy, a seaman, a cook, anything that
allowed him to survive while pursuing his craft. He wrote
between shifts and during long nights, determined to make his
voice heard. His life was a patchwork of odd jobs,
(04:38):
stitched together by a relentless passion for storytelling. But it
wasn't just about survival. That hustle, that grit is what
makes his story so powerful. It's why his work filled
with themes of identity, resilience, and chasing your dreams, finds
(04:59):
its way into classrooms across the country till this day.
But how does a hustling poet who spent his night
scribbling down on napkins and diners become one of the
most taught poets in American classrooms? How did Langston Hughes,
the seamen, the cook, the bus boy transform into the
(05:22):
Langston Hughes that we know today, the voice of dreams, struggles,
and resilience for students everywhere. Langston had an incredible gift
of seeing the beauty and the pain of life and
putting it into words. His poetry captured not just his
(05:42):
own experiences, but the posts of a people. When he
wrote about the rivers in Mississippi, or the Congo or
the Nile, it wasn't just as locations, but as the
history of black resilience. Dream defers doesn't just ask questions,
it demands that you confront it. Mother to son is
(06:06):
like a warm, encouraging arm around your shoulder, telling you
to keep climbing. And that's why, decades later, teachers bring
him into classrooms. Hughes was a bridge to history and literature.
But also to empathy and understanding. His work wasn't just beautiful,
(06:26):
it was teachable and relatable, perfect for young minds learning
about America's diversity and struggles, about dreams and justice, about
what it means to fight and hope and build. The
language is rhythmic and clear. His ideas are timeless, but
(06:48):
the words are simple enough to reach a middle schooler.
He wrote, hold fast to your dreams, for without them,
life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. You
don't need a dictionary for that, because you can feel
it in your soul. As we explore the life and
(07:11):
legacy of Langston Hughes, we had the privilege of speaking
with doctor Carmeletta Williams, the current CEO of the Black
Archives of Mid America and a scholar with three decades
of experience and a passion for Hughes's work. She shared
a deep understanding of his life and gave historical contacts
(07:34):
and insight into what made his voice so revered. Her
ability to connect Langston's work to the broader Black experience
and contemporary conversations made her an extraordinary resource, and we
were truly honored to have her with us and to
share this conversation with you.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
When he was telling stories than the blues genre, and
he was telling the story that the people who made.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Him famous that they were living.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
So he was with the folks he hung out and
churches and as well as in bars, so absorbing all
aspects of the culture.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
And that's what he wrote about. The Negro Mother is powerful.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
Because it hit so many people and they're like, yeah,
my mother's story is a little bit different, but basically
this is her tale too.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Now through my children, young and free, I realized the blessings.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Deny to me.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Of course my mother was Bangstern's generation are after. But
I saw those stairs, I saw that journey life for
me ain't been no crystal statics, had tax in it, boards,
throwing up places with no carpet on the floor.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Fair.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
So I think that he wrote about real life and
that people didn't imagine. Plus he was in the time
he didn't want to take the art so far. I
feel that the regular folk, the common folks, the what
Langston called the negro lois down so that they could
feel it, they could accept that, and then that was
(09:24):
what made him famous. Now also we know about his
relationship with white folks, is that he.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Didn't cater to them.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
Is even though he depended on people like the god
Mother to give him finances and to get him published
and to you know, and he stayed in their homes,
he still wrote his art and he still told about
those lives. And so he bifurcated in a means that
he could operate moviesily in both worlds. And that's been
(09:57):
said of zor two, so we can get to that
they moved easily through all kinds of cultures, but they
stay true to who they were, to their blackness, to
their history, to their people.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
And those are the stories that he wrote about.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Hughes said, I want to write so that everyone can understand,
and he did. That's why you find him in the
pages of school books, inspiring kids to dream big, to
ask questions, to see the world for what it is
and for what it could be. He was an artist
(10:36):
who refused to separate black culture from his art. To him,
jazz and blues weren't just background music. They wore the
heartbeat and soul of his poetry. And that's what makes
Langston Hughes so revolutionary and enduring. He wasn't writing to
(10:56):
impress an exclusive elite. He was writing to connect, to
give voice to the hustlers, to the dreamers, and the
preachers who might otherwise go unheard. His words carry the
rhythm of the streets, the posts of jazz, and the
soul of the everyday person trying to carve out a
(11:18):
piece of the world. Langston understood that poetry wasn't just
for libraries or lecture halls. It was for the people.
It was for the mother humming blues while she cooked,
for the busker playing a saxophone on a Harlem corner,
for the worker coming home late, dreaming of a better tomorrow.
(11:41):
Hughes speaks directly to the human condition, raw, real, and
most importantly accessible, breaking down the barriers between high art
and popular culture.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
We know where he came from. We know that he
came from spare and meager beginnings. I tear up every
time I read about him having to put newspaper in
his shoes, which were usually women's shoes that they had
gotten someplace in the winter time because they didn't have
any money, having to live with Auntie and uncle because
(12:14):
they didn't have any money. And he didn't just say, okay,
I'm above this now. Langston took care of his mother
till she died, and in many places along that road
he had to do it out to take care of her.
He's a man who searched his whole life for a
close relationship with his brother and died without actually having
(12:36):
achieved that.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
So he knew what life was like.
Speaker 5 (12:41):
He knew what people were really going through, and he
didn't discard it. It's like, yeah, I'm writing in limousines
to the met now, So he didn't live that being
the controlling factor. It was always who he was at
that time, where he came from, and who the people were.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
When it's not a miss.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
I don't think that when he left and moved to
New York. He moved to Harlem, you know, and he
was right next door to the YMCA. When he died,
he lived right next door to the YMCA, So that
wasn't an accidental cycle. I think that was always his
plan was to be with the people, and he talked
(13:22):
about being with his people and what he could do
for them. So I think that we remember him now,
we read him now because we still see ourselves in
his work. We see our lives, we see our history,
we see our families, we see our neighbors in what
he wrote, because that's what he did. He took those
ordinary people and made wonderful stories.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
He told their stories, he made up stories about them.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
And that's why I think it lasts so long, and
it's still lasting now.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Beautiful also is a son.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Beautiful also are the souls of my people?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Are my people.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
This universality is why his poetry seamlessly transitions into music,
influencing not only jazz and blues, but laying the groundwork
for hip hop. Hugh's rhythms, cadences, and themes can be
compared to the verses of nineties conscious rappers like Nas
Common and Toothpop, who, like Hughes, spoke to the struggles
(14:30):
and dreams of their communities. His poems are the spiritual
ancestors of rap lyrics, the original anthems of resilience and pride.
Lanxon Hughes made art for the people, for his people,
and that's why his influence indoors. His poetry doesn't just
sit on a page. It moves, It sings, it marches.
(14:54):
It's very much alive today as it was in a
Harlem Renaissance, proving that the rhythm of the streets is timeless,
you are listening to black lids. To truly grasp the
(15:14):
depth of Langston Hughes's insight, we must look back to
a defining moment in his young life, a moment that
shaped the lens through which he would view the world.
Envision a young Langston now living with his godfaring aunt
and pipe laying uncle after the passing of his grandmother.
Although he loved his aunt and uncle, he was just
(15:37):
thirteen when his aunt brought him to church to get saved.
He sat nervously in a church in his hometown in Lawrence, Kansas, waiting, waiting.
It was supposed to be a moment of salvation, waiting, waiting,
a rite of passage into faith. The congregation full of
(16:00):
fervor and hope, waiting waiting for Langston to join the
procession of young souls saved by God, and his aunt
desperately awaiting to affirm her hope.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Lengthen set palm, sweating, waiting, waity, searching. He wanted to
feel something, anything, that would affirm the presence of a
higher power, but that moment never came. Eventually, under immense pressure,
he walked to the altar not out of faith, but
(16:45):
to fulfill his aunt's expectations and to end the spectacle.
That night, alone in his room, Lengthton cried not tears
of joy, but of profound disillusionment. He had been searching
for God and instead found the weight of expectation and pretense.
(17:10):
The walls were thin, and his aunt heard his tears
and assumed they were of glory. This was a moment
that would stay with him, shaping his understanding of faith
community in the gap between societal norms and individual truth.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
We know that story because he's hearing and he's hearing,
and he's hearing that all of these children are all
going to be saved, and he knows some of them
are faking it because they talk about it. And then
when it comes to the point where he's last kid's
city and this service is not going to end if
he doesn't, then he goes to the altar and he
(17:55):
pretends to have seen Jesus. And that night, well, you know,
when he goes home, he hears his auntie and Oglerie
talking and she talks about how proud she is of
him for having found God, and chal Ree doesn't care
at all.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
You know, he's not that religious person.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
But then he feels guilt because he had lied to
people who had been so good to him. And I
think that's the reason that when he needed God, he
didn't come to He wasn't there, he didn't come to him.
So I think that's why we see this mixture of
emotions when it comes to religion in his work, because
(18:37):
we see those women that he writes about who actually
retreat to the church because their lives, their personal lives
are so heavy and they can't deal with themselves.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
They go to the church. They retreat to the church.
But we also see.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
Him going to church, and he has a good time
when he goes, but he goes to listen to the
music and listen to the people, not necessarily to connected God.
So we have then this split, this bifurcation of this
guy who was raised in the people that the person
that he loved most anti read, who took care of
(19:14):
him and took care of his grandmother, wanted to embed
this religion in him, and then him thinking as a
child that God didn't become when I needed it. So
what does he do with that? Well, he keeps going
to church in different churches, and somehow, I think at
(19:34):
times he was pretending just to be going for the
music because he got hurt of music other places, but
he also wanted to be in that community of blackness.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
This pivotal experience would later ring throughout Hughes's work. His
poetry often wrestled with the tension between belief and skepticism,
hope and despair. In poems like The Negro Speaks of
Rivers and Goodbye Christ, he grapples with the spiritual and
(20:09):
existential questions that define not just his life, but the
lives of many. He understood the beauty and the power
of faith, but he also saw how it could be
weaponized or hollowed out by human failings. This experience marks
(20:30):
a consistent conflict that shows up throughout Langston's work. Later on,
after visiting the Soviet Union and seeing socialism working. Here
are a few words from the poem Goodbye Christ, where
Hughes calls for a rethinking of dominant American beliefs. Listen, Christ,
(20:58):
you did all right in your day, I reckon, but
that day's gone now. They ghosted you up A swell
story too, called it Bible, but it's dead now. The
popes and the preachers have made much money from him.
Linx and Hughes' search for truth beginning at that church.
(21:18):
Fuel was never about easy answers. It was about embracing
the complexity of life, the struggles and contradictions that make
us human. And in doing so, he became the unchallenged
spokesman of the black experience.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
He wanted to be with those black folks in the church.
You wanted to share their life stories. You wanted to
hear their testimonies, and he wanted them to sing that
story out so that he could absorb that. And then
on the other hand, you know when he talks about music,
he talks a lot about the blues, and the blues
he says of this stories of those people that starts
(22:02):
in their gut and tells their stories. And when he
needed help, it was the people. And when he wanted
to fill hole, he went.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
To the people.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
It was the folk that helped Bangston. The folks stayed there,
the folk who helped him to reach his goals and
realize its dreams. So for me, I think Blangston's religion
and his non religion.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
We're all a totally merchant into black life.
Speaker 5 (22:34):
This is what it feels to be black and he
wants to feel all aspects of it.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Chocolate Darling out of a dream, born uns into the
Coco Brown whom pomegranate lived, pride of the town.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Lazy Hughes and the Death Poet.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
What you just heard was Yassin Bay, the artist known
as most Death, reciting Hughes's Harlem Sweeties on an episode
of HBO's Deaf Poetry Jam. It's a powerful connection between
two eras, but also transcends time, where poetry becomes music,
becomes culture, becomes life itself. Hughes wasn't just a writer,
(23:16):
he was a witness. He documented the Black experience and
all its complexity, the pain and the perseverance, but also
the beauty. And then, like Harlem Sweeties, he celebrates the
beauty of Black women, the laughter and the loss. He
(23:38):
gave dignity to lives ignored, carving out spaces for those
stories to be heard.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
Many of my poems are poems about the problems of
American democracy in general, as applied to race.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Leston Hughes is one of the greatest poets to ever exist.
I am fed up with Jim crow Laws.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
People are cruel.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I'm afraid who ron.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Zyon the Weapon the Lord formed against those I prefer
the Lord mathematics.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Sob Jim Crows a poet like Blaxton Hughes and can't lose.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
The very roots of hip hop are in Langston Hughes's work,
the flow of his words, the raw honesty of his storytelling.
They formed the blueprint for artists like Kendrick Andre three thousand,
Black Thought, Most Death. They embodied Hughes' core sensibility to
take the everyday struggles and triumphs of black life and
(24:33):
turn them into art. Leanthon Hughes was a poet of truth.
He didn't shy away from the tension between faith and doubt,
between family and interdependence. In fact, his work often peeled
back the layers of social norms to reveal what lies
beneath humanity. Lengthton didn't just write about the world, He
(24:55):
changed how we see it. He turned the Harlem streets
into poetry, transformed jazz and blues into structure, and made
a legacy that flows like the mighty River from the
Harlem Renaissance to the beats of hip hop. But before
the poet, before the legacy, there was the revival, a
(25:19):
moment of silence, a moment doubt and the moment when
Lens and Hughes began to discover his truth. It was
the birth of a vision, not bound but what should be,
but by what is?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
You had to risk it all, you had to go.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Bro.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Now, I what I would have likes to what I
would have w duvoir, what I would have Fredrick Douglass.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
As my team and I were wrapping up the edit
and final selects for this episode, we received word of
Nikki Giovanni's passing, so in honor of her, we end
on a poem she wrote, for links and heres, rest
(26:12):
and peace to you both. Thank you for your literature,
your art, your words, your poetry, and for your ancestral mentorship.
(26:33):
We are grateful.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
If I took a rainbow ride, I could be there
by your side. Metaphor has its point of view, illusion
and illusion to meter verse, classical free poems, or what
you do to Me?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Join us next week as we explore more of Linkston's
life and work. Black Lit is a Black Effect original
series in partnership with iHeartMedia. Is written and created by myself,
Jack Queis Thomas and executive produce alongside Dolly s Bishop.
(27:12):
Chanelle Collins is the Director of Production, Head of Talent
Nicole Spence, writer producer Jason Torres, Our researcher and producer
is Jabari Davis, and the mix and sound design is
by the Humble Duane Crawford Special thanks to doctor CROMLETTA.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Williams.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Gratitude is an action, so I have to give praise
to those who took the time out to write a review.
Please keep sharing and we will promise to bring more
writers and greater episodes to you. Also, if you're looking
to become a writer or in search of a supportive
writing community, join me for a free creative writing session
(27:52):
on my website black writers Room dot com, BLK writer's
Room dot com, or hit me up directly from more
details at Underscore t h A T S P E
A c E.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
That's piece
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