WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.500 We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as 00:00:02.500 --> 00:00:05.059 we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, 00:00:05.139 --> 00:00:08.119 free within ourselves. Wow. I mean, that's not 00:00:08.119 --> 00:00:10.300 just a beautiful line of poetry. No. That is 00:00:10.300 --> 00:00:12.580 the sound of an entire generation, you know, 00:00:12.619 --> 00:00:15.019 finding its voice. That's Langston Hughes basically 00:00:15.019 --> 00:00:17.980 laying down a new law. A declaration of independence. 00:00:18.100 --> 00:00:21.640 Exactly. A cultural and an aesthetic one, all 00:00:21.640 --> 00:00:25.239 rolled into this one just... Magnificent sentence. 00:00:25.500 --> 00:00:28.379 And that quote, that manifesto, really, it just 00:00:28.379 --> 00:00:30.760 perfectly sets the stage for the man we're diving 00:00:30.760 --> 00:00:34.259 into today, James Mercer Langston Hughes. And 00:00:34.259 --> 00:00:36.719 he was so much more than just a poet. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:36.820 --> 00:00:39.719 He was a novelist, a playwright, a really effective 00:00:39.719 --> 00:00:42.820 social activist, a columnist. He even wrote operas. 00:00:44.170 --> 00:00:46.750 Maybe most importantly, he was the key innovator 00:00:46.750 --> 00:00:49.130 of what we now call jazz poetry. He really was 00:00:49.130 --> 00:00:51.109 the voice of the Harlem Renaissance. He defined 00:00:51.109 --> 00:00:53.189 it. And what's so fascinating, looking through 00:00:53.189 --> 00:00:55.009 the sources we have for you, and it's a huge 00:00:55.009 --> 00:00:58.090 stack of biographical, literary, historical information, 00:00:58.369 --> 00:01:01.090 is how you can trace that voice all the way back. 00:01:01.170 --> 00:01:04.230 Back through generations. Yes. So our mission 00:01:04.230 --> 00:01:07.090 for this deep dive is it's to move beyond the 00:01:07.090 --> 00:01:09.489 simple biography. We really want to uncover the 00:01:09.489 --> 00:01:13.069 specific cultural, political and personal influences 00:01:13.069 --> 00:01:17.129 that made Hughes the people's poet. So not just 00:01:17.129 --> 00:01:19.370 what he wrote, but why he wrote it that way. 00:01:19.430 --> 00:01:22.280 Exactly. How his lonely, frankly complicated 00:01:22.280 --> 00:01:25.599 globetrotting life shaped his commitment to showing 00:01:25.599 --> 00:01:28.519 the real unvarnished lives of working class black 00:01:28.519 --> 00:01:30.599 Americans. OK, so let's start with a core nugget 00:01:30.599 --> 00:01:33.219 then, because his sheer output is just staggering. 00:01:33.340 --> 00:01:35.819 I mean, he was. Unbelievably productive. He really 00:01:35.819 --> 00:01:37.719 was. Not just in different genres. You said it. 00:01:37.739 --> 00:01:40.519 Novels, operas, essays, kids books. But his dedication 00:01:40.519 --> 00:01:42.620 to just being part of the public conversation. 00:01:42.959 --> 00:01:45.260 And that's the key thing, isn't it? He wasn't 00:01:45.260 --> 00:01:47.859 some artist locked away in an attic. Not at all. 00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:50.540 And the best piece of data on that is his column 00:01:50.540 --> 00:01:53.359 in the Chicago Defender. He had an influential 00:01:53.359 --> 00:01:56.340 weekly opinion column in this major black newspaper 00:01:56.340 --> 00:02:00.519 for 20 years. 20 years. From 1942 all the way 00:02:00.519 --> 00:02:03.980 to 1962. It's incredible. That's... I mean, that's 00:02:03.980 --> 00:02:05.780 not just a literary figure. That's a journalist. 00:02:06.019 --> 00:02:08.460 That's a political commentator writing week in, 00:02:08.479 --> 00:02:10.620 week out. That must have shaped how he thought. 00:02:10.860 --> 00:02:13.400 Absolutely. It forced him to be relevant, to 00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:16.800 be accessible, to be connected to the daily worries 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:19.360 and hopes of his readers right through the rise 00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:21.699 of the civil rights movement. That is what separated 00:02:21.699 --> 00:02:25.740 him from so many of his more academic contemporaries. 00:02:25.759 --> 00:02:27.860 He was always writing for the people. And that 00:02:27.860 --> 00:02:32.110 sense of duty, that staying power. It turns out 00:02:32.110 --> 00:02:34.830 it has these incredibly deep roots in his family 00:02:34.830 --> 00:02:37.270 history. This is where the deep dive gets really 00:02:37.270 --> 00:02:39.090 illuminating. It connects him right away to the 00:02:39.090 --> 00:02:41.110 very heart of the American struggle, you know, 00:02:41.129 --> 00:02:43.550 the central conflict of it. Hughes had mixed 00:02:43.550 --> 00:02:46.629 ancestry, like many African -Americans, but the 00:02:46.629 --> 00:02:50.030 specifics of his family tree are just so revealing. 00:02:50.330 --> 00:02:52.310 Let's start with his paternal side because it 00:02:52.310 --> 00:02:55.169 really embodies that conflict. Both of his paternal 00:02:55.169 --> 00:02:57.569 great -grandmothers were enslaved Africans. Right. 00:02:57.960 --> 00:03:00.060 And both of his paternal great grandfathers were 00:03:00.060 --> 00:03:03.060 white slave owners in Kentucky. So his own bloodline 00:03:03.060 --> 00:03:05.439 contains the entire power dynamic of the country 00:03:05.439 --> 00:03:07.259 right there, the oppressor and the oppressed. 00:03:07.580 --> 00:03:09.740 And he claims some pretty specific connections, 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:12.280 too. He said one of those great grandfathers 00:03:12.280 --> 00:03:15.020 was related to the statesman Henry Clay. The 00:03:15.020 --> 00:03:17.120 other, he claimed, was a Jewish slave trader. 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:19.919 And whether those claims are, you know, 100 percent 00:03:19.919 --> 00:03:22.900 verifiable or not, the story he's telling is 00:03:22.900 --> 00:03:25.990 clear. His family was tied up in the economic 00:03:25.990 --> 00:03:28.949 engine of slavery and white power. But then you 00:03:28.949 --> 00:03:31.069 look at his mother's side of the family, and 00:03:31.069 --> 00:03:32.889 the story just completely flips on its head. 00:03:33.030 --> 00:03:35.849 It becomes a story of radical activism, of liberation. 00:03:36.469 --> 00:03:39.169 His maternal grandmother, Mary Patterson, was 00:03:39.169 --> 00:03:41.909 mixed race, and she was one of the very first 00:03:41.909 --> 00:03:44.629 women to go to Oberlin College. Which was a pioneering 00:03:44.629 --> 00:03:48.370 institution. A hub for abolitionism. And Mary's 00:03:48.370 --> 00:03:51.009 life was defined by that fight. Her first husband, 00:03:51.229 --> 00:03:54.120 Louis Sheridan Leary. He died fighting alongside 00:03:54.120 --> 00:03:57.439 John Brown. At Harper's Ferry. Yes. He was fatally 00:03:57.439 --> 00:04:00.580 wounded at John Brown's infamous raid in 1859. 00:04:00.840 --> 00:04:02.919 That's not just a historical footnote. It's a 00:04:02.919 --> 00:04:05.439 direct bloody link to the most radical moment 00:04:05.439 --> 00:04:08.039 of the abolitionist movement. After Leary's death, 00:04:08.300 --> 00:04:11.400 Mary married Charles Henry Langston. That's where 00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:13.689 Hughes gets his name. And Charles Langston was 00:04:13.689 --> 00:04:16.629 just as committed. He and his brother, John Mercer 00:04:16.629 --> 00:04:19.129 Langston, were leaders of the Ohio Anti -Slavery 00:04:19.129 --> 00:04:21.730 Society. They were major figures. And after the 00:04:21.730 --> 00:04:24.759 Civil War, Charles moved to Kansas. And just 00:04:24.759 --> 00:04:27.300 kept fighting. He worked for voting rights, for 00:04:27.300 --> 00:04:29.759 civil rights, for African -Americans. This family 00:04:29.759 --> 00:04:32.459 was at the very center of the struggle. So you 00:04:32.459 --> 00:04:35.420 have the man who would write the manifesto for 00:04:35.420 --> 00:04:37.660 the Harlem Renaissance, literally descending 00:04:37.660 --> 00:04:40.040 from the people who led the charge for abolition 00:04:40.040 --> 00:04:43.439 a generation before. He carried that legacy in 00:04:43.439 --> 00:04:46.079 his name. But his actual childhood, despite those 00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:49.899 heroic roots, was... It was really difficult. 00:04:50.060 --> 00:04:52.819 Incredibly unstable, yeah, and lonely. He grew 00:04:52.819 --> 00:04:55.720 up in these small Midwestern towns, Joplin, Missouri, 00:04:56.100 --> 00:04:58.800 Lawrence, Kansas. His parents divorced very early 00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:00.800 on. And his father, James Hughes, he basically 00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:03.139 just left the country. He went to Cuba, then 00:05:03.139 --> 00:05:05.740 Mexico to escape American racism. And that left 00:05:05.740 --> 00:05:08.579 a huge hole in Langston's life, emotionally and 00:05:08.579 --> 00:05:10.779 financially. He was raised mostly by his grandmother, 00:05:10.939 --> 00:05:12.779 Mary Langston. The same grandmother with that 00:05:12.779 --> 00:05:15.720 incredible activist history. Exactly. And she 00:05:15.720 --> 00:05:18.360 was the one who instilled in him what he called 00:05:18.360 --> 00:05:21.779 a lasting sense of racial pride. She told him 00:05:21.779 --> 00:05:24.019 the stories, she passed on the oral tradition, 00:05:24.160 --> 00:05:26.720 and she taught him he had a duty to his race. 00:05:26.980 --> 00:05:29.660 So that's why he always identified with the working 00:05:29.660 --> 00:05:33.360 class black experience, not the striving middle 00:05:33.360 --> 00:05:35.579 class. It's the foundation of everything. And 00:05:35.579 --> 00:05:38.480 during that lonely time, books became his lifeline. 00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:41.040 They were his escape. I love how he described 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:43.899 it in his autobiography. He wrote, Then it was 00:05:43.899 --> 00:05:46.920 that books began to happen to me, where if people 00:05:46.920 --> 00:05:49.300 suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, 00:05:49.420 --> 00:05:52.319 not in monosyllables as we did in Kansas. Wow, 00:05:52.560 --> 00:05:54.839 that's it, isn't it? The difference between chaotic, 00:05:55.040 --> 00:05:57.220 silent suffering and suffering that's given dignity 00:05:57.220 --> 00:05:59.560 and shape through language, that's the core of 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:01.680 his entire artistic mission right there. And 00:06:01.680 --> 00:06:04.670 his own poetic career got a... Well, a slightly 00:06:04.670 --> 00:06:07.850 strange start. He was elected class poet in grammar 00:06:07.850 --> 00:06:09.949 school in Lincoln, Illinois. Yeah, and he was 00:06:09.949 --> 00:06:12.149 very cynical about why. He said he was a victim 00:06:12.149 --> 00:06:14.310 of a stereotype. There were only two black kids 00:06:14.310 --> 00:06:16.290 in his class. And the teacher kept talking about 00:06:16.290 --> 00:06:19.069 rhythm and poetry. Right. So he said that other 00:06:19.069 --> 00:06:22.689 kids just thought, well, everyone knows all Negroes 00:06:22.689 --> 00:06:25.110 have rhythm, so they elected me as class poet. 00:06:25.329 --> 00:06:27.889 It's such a sharp observation for a kid to make. 00:06:28.439 --> 00:06:31.660 He takes this personal moment and immediately 00:06:31.660 --> 00:06:34.720 sees the social structure behind it. He saw that 00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:37.139 the very thing they stereotyped him for, rhythm, 00:06:37.339 --> 00:06:40.120 would become the heart of his art. Then in high 00:06:40.120 --> 00:06:42.639 school in Cleveland, he really started to find 00:06:42.639 --> 00:06:45.379 his footing. He had a supportive teacher, Helen 00:06:45.379 --> 00:06:47.779 Maria Chestnut. And he was writing constantly 00:06:47.779 --> 00:06:50.139 for the school paper, the yearbook. And that's 00:06:50.139 --> 00:06:52.040 where he wrote his first piece of jazz poetry, 00:06:52.379 --> 00:06:55.420 When Sue Wears Red. So the seeds were already 00:06:55.420 --> 00:06:58.120 being planted in Cleveland long before he ever 00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:00.639 got to Harlem. The whole foundation was being 00:07:00.639 --> 00:07:03.839 laid piece by piece in the Midwest. Okay, so 00:07:03.839 --> 00:07:06.220 that takes us from his childhood to the next 00:07:06.220 --> 00:07:09.389 major turning point. The conflict with his father 00:07:09.389 --> 00:07:11.189 that, funnily enough, is what gets him to New 00:07:11.189 --> 00:07:13.350 York. Yeah, this fight with his father, James 00:07:13.350 --> 00:07:15.730 Hughes, was about so much more than just a career 00:07:15.730 --> 00:07:19.069 choice. It was a clash of identities. His father, 00:07:19.149 --> 00:07:21.509 having fled the U .S., really disliked his own 00:07:21.509 --> 00:07:23.750 race. Which Langston just couldn't understand. 00:07:24.110 --> 00:07:26.750 No. He had been raised on this lasting sense 00:07:26.750 --> 00:07:29.379 of racial pride. He wrote, I didn't understand 00:07:29.379 --> 00:07:31.680 it because I was a Negro and I liked Negroes 00:07:31.680 --> 00:07:33.860 very much. It's such a fundamental difference. 00:07:34.180 --> 00:07:36.540 And his father was, by all accounts, just a cold 00:07:36.540 --> 00:07:39.240 and uncharitable man. He wanted Langston to study 00:07:39.240 --> 00:07:41.540 engineering, something practical and far away 00:07:41.540 --> 00:07:43.620 from the arts. So Hughes goes to live with him 00:07:43.620 --> 00:07:47.000 in Mexico for a bit in 1919 and 1920, trying 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:49.180 to get him to pay for college. But his father 00:07:49.180 --> 00:07:51.920 just would not support his dream of being a writer. 00:07:51.980 --> 00:07:54.949 So they strike this. This compromise. A deal 00:07:54.949 --> 00:07:56.850 made under duress, it sounds like. Completely. 00:07:56.870 --> 00:07:59.269 The father agrees to pay for college, but only 00:07:59.269 --> 00:08:01.329 if he goes to Columbia University and studies 00:08:01.329 --> 00:08:03.889 engineering. So for Hughes, Columbia wasn't about 00:08:03.889 --> 00:08:07.050 the Ivy League prestige. It was a ticket to New 00:08:07.050 --> 00:08:09.170 York, a ticket to be near Harlem. That's all 00:08:09.170 --> 00:08:12.790 it was. So he enrolls in 1921. And he's a good 00:08:12.790 --> 00:08:15.069 student. He gets a B -plus average. He's even 00:08:15.069 --> 00:08:17.529 publishing poetry secretly in the school paper. 00:08:17.750 --> 00:08:20.110 But the whole thing, the engineering, it wasn't 00:08:20.110 --> 00:08:22.889 him. And Columbia itself was a hostile environment. 00:08:23.110 --> 00:08:26.170 He dropped out in 1922, and he was very clear 00:08:26.170 --> 00:08:29.050 why. Racial prejudice among students and teachers. 00:08:29.290 --> 00:08:31.069 He couldn't even get a room on campus at first 00:08:31.069 --> 00:08:33.330 because he was black. Right. The whole atmosphere 00:08:33.330 --> 00:08:36.049 was cold and exclusionary, especially compared 00:08:36.049 --> 00:08:38.610 to the vibrant life he saw happening just a few 00:08:38.610 --> 00:08:41.230 blocks away in Harlem. The music, the energy, 00:08:41.370 --> 00:08:43.960 the culture. So Columbia. which was supposed 00:08:43.960 --> 00:08:45.919 to launch this engineering career his father 00:08:45.919 --> 00:08:48.659 wanted, actually just pushed him right into the 00:08:48.659 --> 00:08:51.440 arms of Harlem. It did, and that led to what 00:08:51.440 --> 00:08:54.879 he called his wanderer years. From 23 to 25, 00:08:55.059 --> 00:08:57.179 he really went out and saw the world. He did 00:08:57.179 --> 00:08:59.200 all sorts of jobs. I mean, he was a crewman on 00:08:59.200 --> 00:09:01.659 a tramp steamer, the SS Malone. Which took him 00:09:01.659 --> 00:09:04.470 to West Africa and Europe. This gave him a truly 00:09:04.470 --> 00:09:07.629 global view of the African diaspora long before 00:09:07.629 --> 00:09:09.750 most people were thinking that way. He spent 00:09:09.750 --> 00:09:12.549 some time in Paris, had a romance there, worked 00:09:12.549 --> 00:09:14.730 as a dishwasher. He was living the life of an 00:09:14.730 --> 00:09:17.049 expatriate artist. And when he came back to the 00:09:17.049 --> 00:09:20.110 U .S., he kept doing this mix of jobs. For a 00:09:20.110 --> 00:09:22.250 while, he was an assistant to the historian Carter 00:09:22.250 --> 00:09:24.789 G. Woodson. A pretty prestigious job. But it 00:09:24.789 --> 00:09:26.509 took up all his time. It kept him from writing. 00:09:26.610 --> 00:09:29.789 So he quits. And he takes a job as a busboy at 00:09:29.789 --> 00:09:32.460 a hotel in Washington, D .C. Which seems like 00:09:32.460 --> 00:09:34.340 a step down, but it turns out to be the move 00:09:34.340 --> 00:09:36.580 that launches his career. Yes, the legendary 00:09:36.580 --> 00:09:38.720 discovery story. He was already getting published, 00:09:38.820 --> 00:09:41.480 but this is what made him famous. The poet, Rachel 00:09:41.480 --> 00:09:44.179 Lindsay, was eating at the hotel. And Hughes 00:09:44.179 --> 00:09:46.379 just left some of his poems next to Lindsay's 00:09:46.379 --> 00:09:48.840 plate. He did. And Lindsay was so impressed, 00:09:48.980 --> 00:09:51.639 not just by the poems, but by the story. This 00:09:51.639 --> 00:09:54.700 brilliant young black poet discovered working 00:09:54.700 --> 00:09:57.379 as a busboy. He told everyone. It's a perfect 00:09:57.379 --> 00:10:01.139 story. It created a huge buzz. And that publicity 00:10:01.139 --> 00:10:03.940 finally gave him some stability. He was able 00:10:03.940 --> 00:10:06.360 to enroll at Lincoln University, a historically 00:10:06.360 --> 00:10:09.620 black university. And he finally got his B .A. 00:10:09.659 --> 00:10:12.740 in 1929. before heading right back to Harlem, 00:10:12.860 --> 00:10:15.100 which would become his home. His true home. So 00:10:15.100 --> 00:10:17.340 he arrives in Harlem with the degree, the reputation, 00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:20.820 the experience, the timing is perfect. And his 00:10:20.820 --> 00:10:23.039 poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, which he wrote 00:10:23.039 --> 00:10:25.399 when he was just 19, had already cemented his 00:10:25.399 --> 00:10:27.700 place. It's still his signature poem. It was 00:10:27.700 --> 00:10:31.340 first published in 1921 in The Crisis, the NAACP's 00:10:31.340 --> 00:10:35.299 magazine. And the poem is just epic. in its scope. 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:38.179 It connects the Black experience across thousands 00:10:38.179 --> 00:10:41.559 of years, from the Euphrates and the Congo to 00:10:41.559 --> 00:10:44.500 the Mississippi. And that last line, my soul 00:10:44.500 --> 00:10:47.559 has grown deep like the rivers, became his epitaph. 00:10:47.600 --> 00:10:50.720 It's so powerful. And the fact that the crisis 00:10:50.720 --> 00:10:54.139 polished him so much shows how tied he was to 00:10:54.139 --> 00:10:56.019 the civil rights movement from the very beginning. 00:10:56.220 --> 00:10:57.799 And he wasn't working alone, of course. He was 00:10:57.799 --> 00:11:00.340 a central figure, a leader, alongside people 00:11:00.340 --> 00:11:02.840 like Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, County 00:11:02.840 --> 00:11:05.139 Cullen. A whole collective. They even started 00:11:05.139 --> 00:11:07.960 their own literary magazine, Fire. It was short 00:11:07.960 --> 00:11:10.389 -lived. But so influential. Because they weren't 00:11:10.389 --> 00:11:12.389 just writing nice poems. They were fighting an 00:11:12.389 --> 00:11:15.909 ideological battle. A huge one. especially against 00:11:15.909 --> 00:11:18.070 the established black middle class, the black 00:11:18.070 --> 00:11:19.889 bourgeoisie. Who they felt were trying to be 00:11:19.889 --> 00:11:22.710 too... Exactable, exactly. Hughes and his friends 00:11:22.710 --> 00:11:25.350 wanted to write about the low life, the real, 00:11:25.370 --> 00:11:27.789 unvarnished, sometimes messy lives of working 00:11:27.789 --> 00:11:30.289 class black people. They wanted to use jazz and 00:11:30.289 --> 00:11:32.669 blues rhythms, the folk culture. And they criticized 00:11:32.669 --> 00:11:35.070 the prejudices within the black community, the 00:11:35.070 --> 00:11:38.250 colorism, the classism. All of it. And this whole 00:11:38.250 --> 00:11:41.250 artistic mission needed a declaration. It needed 00:11:41.250 --> 00:11:46.779 a manifesto. Which came in 1926 with his... This 00:11:46.779 --> 00:11:48.940 is one of the most important documents of the 00:11:48.940 --> 00:11:51.440 era. He's basically saying the racial mountain 00:11:51.440 --> 00:11:55.220 isn't white people. It's the desire within black 00:11:55.220 --> 00:11:58.360 artists to want to be white, to conform to white 00:11:58.360 --> 00:12:00.460 standards of art. To climb that mountain is to 00:12:00.460 --> 00:12:02.840 lose yourself. Right. And he argues they have 00:12:02.840 --> 00:12:05.179 to reject that completely. And the end of that 00:12:05.179 --> 00:12:08.000 essay. It's the quote we started with. It's just 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:10.659 a powerful declaration of self -worth and artistic 00:12:10.659 --> 00:12:12.620 freedom. Let's hear it again because it really 00:12:12.620 --> 00:12:32.309 is the cornerstone. He says, Their displeasure 00:12:32.309 --> 00:12:34.389 doesn't matter either. We build our temples for 00:12:34.389 --> 00:12:36.870 tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand 00:12:36.870 --> 00:12:38.529 on top of the mountain free within ourselves. 00:12:39.009 --> 00:12:40.789 It still gives you chills. I mean, that is a 00:12:40.789 --> 00:12:43.230 generation claiming its power. And everything 00:12:43.230 --> 00:12:46.129 he wrote after that flows from this idea. Pride 00:12:46.129 --> 00:12:49.269 and black identity, cultural nationalism, and 00:12:49.269 --> 00:12:51.730 using jazz and blues as the actual structure 00:12:51.730 --> 00:12:54.570 of his poetry. When we say jazz poetry. What 00:12:54.570 --> 00:12:56.370 does that actually mean on the page? It means 00:12:56.370 --> 00:12:59.350 using syncopation, repetition, call and response, 00:12:59.669 --> 00:13:02.529 trying to capture the improvisational feel of 00:13:02.529 --> 00:13:05.309 the music in words. In a poem like The Weary 00:13:05.309 --> 00:13:08.029 Blues, he's using rhythm and dialect to elevate 00:13:08.029 --> 00:13:10.850 the everyday pain and beauty of black life into 00:13:10.850 --> 00:13:13.350 high art. And his mission was always so clear. 00:13:13.509 --> 00:13:16.230 He said he wanted to explain and illuminate the 00:13:16.230 --> 00:13:19.029 Negro condition in America and obliquely that 00:13:19.029 --> 00:13:21.870 of all humankind. It was a universal message 00:13:21.870 --> 00:13:24.950 rooted in a specific experience, and that influence 00:13:24.950 --> 00:13:27.710 went global. His work was a huge inspiration 00:13:27.710 --> 00:13:30.330 for the negritude movement in France. With writers 00:13:30.330 --> 00:13:32.549 like Leopold Sider -Senghor? Yes, who became 00:13:32.549 --> 00:13:35.470 the first president of Senegal. They saw Hughes 00:13:35.470 --> 00:13:38.309 as a model for how to use art for cultural pride 00:13:38.309 --> 00:13:40.789 and political resistance. He gave them a template. 00:13:41.070 --> 00:13:44.149 So his aesthetic was born in Harlem, but his 00:13:44.149 --> 00:13:46.590 understanding of the full Black American experience, 00:13:47.070 --> 00:13:49.899 that wasn't complete yet. His early view of the 00:13:49.899 --> 00:13:52.279 South, for instance, was pretty flawed. That's 00:13:52.279 --> 00:13:54.200 right. Before he'd actually spent time there, 00:13:54.259 --> 00:13:56.620 he was influenced by some of the negative stereotypes 00:13:56.620 --> 00:14:00.220 common in the North. His 1922 poem, The South, 00:14:00.399 --> 00:14:03.620 actually calls the people lazy and stupid. It's 00:14:03.620 --> 00:14:05.940 kind of shocking to hear. It is. But that view 00:14:05.940 --> 00:14:09.850 was about to be completely transformed. In 1927, 00:14:10.029 --> 00:14:12.669 he takes this pivotal trip down south. This is 00:14:12.669 --> 00:14:14.870 funded by his patron, Charlotte Osgood Mason. 00:14:15.049 --> 00:14:17.730 Right, his godmother, as he called her. And she 00:14:17.730 --> 00:14:20.129 wanted him to go collect folk songs and stories, 00:14:20.169 --> 00:14:22.490 almost like an anthropologist. She was interested 00:14:22.490 --> 00:14:25.529 in what she saw as this, you know, pure, primitive 00:14:25.529 --> 00:14:28.190 African culture. But Hughes had a different goal. 00:14:28.350 --> 00:14:30.330 He wanted to learn about the lives of people 00:14:30.330 --> 00:14:32.750 of color in the South. on their own terms. And 00:14:32.750 --> 00:14:35.230 the trip was a revelation for him. It was a shock. 00:14:35.309 --> 00:14:37.789 He was, in his words, astonished by the way people 00:14:37.789 --> 00:14:39.970 of color endured racism and their life conditions. 00:14:40.330 --> 00:14:43.350 His perspective shifted from stereotype to deep, 00:14:43.429 --> 00:14:46.570 deep admiration. And this trip is also where 00:14:46.570 --> 00:14:49.509 he partners up with Zora Neale Hurston. They 00:14:49.509 --> 00:14:52.509 met in Mobile, Alabama. And the key detail here 00:14:52.509 --> 00:14:55.570 is that Zora had a car. Which was a huge deal 00:14:55.570 --> 00:14:57.909 for a Black person trying to travel in the segregated 00:14:57.909 --> 00:15:01.350 South. A game changer. So they decided to travel 00:15:01.350 --> 00:15:04.049 together, this amazing team, documenting folk 00:15:04.049 --> 00:15:06.889 songs, local dialects, everything. They visited 00:15:06.889 --> 00:15:09.730 Tuskegee. They met other writers. And the material 00:15:09.730 --> 00:15:12.370 they gathered was just priceless. He met the 00:15:12.370 --> 00:15:15.049 blues singer Bessie Smith. He met an escaped 00:15:15.049 --> 00:15:18.450 prisoner from a chain gang. These real, raw experiences 00:15:18.450 --> 00:15:21.230 went directly into his work. They inspired his 00:15:21.230 --> 00:15:23.549 first novel, Not Without Laughter, which won 00:15:23.549 --> 00:15:26.230 a major award. And it also led to the play he 00:15:26.230 --> 00:15:28.840 wrote with Hurston, Mule Bone. Which became a 00:15:28.840 --> 00:15:31.460 source of major conflict. A huge conflict. That 00:15:31.460 --> 00:15:33.460 play is actually what destroyed their friendship. 00:15:33.720 --> 00:15:36.019 They had a bitter dispute over authorship and 00:15:36.019 --> 00:15:38.120 money. And their patron, Mason, was involved 00:15:38.120 --> 00:15:40.620 in that too. She was. It's a really sad story 00:15:40.620 --> 00:15:43.299 about how financial pressure and ego could just 00:15:43.299 --> 00:15:45.740 tear these brilliant collaborations apart. And 00:15:45.740 --> 00:15:47.860 his relationship with his patron, Mason, also 00:15:47.860 --> 00:15:50.759 eventually fell apart. It did. He broke with 00:15:50.759 --> 00:15:53.220 her because she was just too controlling. She 00:15:53.220 --> 00:15:57.139 wanted him to be her. her pet primitive, writing 00:15:57.139 --> 00:15:59.759 only about the folk culture she found exotic. 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:02.799 She didn't want him writing about modern urban 00:16:02.799 --> 00:16:06.080 political life. And he chose his artistic freedom 00:16:06.080 --> 00:16:08.639 over her money. He did, which is a testament 00:16:08.639 --> 00:16:10.820 to his integrity. But his collaboration with 00:16:10.820 --> 00:16:13.580 his best friend, Arne Bontemps, that one lasted 00:16:13.580 --> 00:16:16.720 his whole life. They edited this monumental anthology 00:16:16.720 --> 00:16:19.700 together, The Poetry of the Negro. So as Hughes 00:16:19.700 --> 00:16:21.820 is maturing and the Great Depression is hitting, 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:24.629 his work becomes more and more political. It 00:16:24.629 --> 00:16:26.769 does. And our sources are very clear that his 00:16:26.769 --> 00:16:28.750 attraction to communism wasn't really about, 00:16:28.750 --> 00:16:31.190 you know, reading dense theory. It was more practical. 00:16:31.330 --> 00:16:33.870 It was emotional. He said his interest was born 00:16:33.870 --> 00:16:36.809 out of my own need. Communism, at least on paper, 00:16:36.990 --> 00:16:39.110 offered an alternative to segregated America. 00:16:39.350 --> 00:16:41.769 It preached racial equality and international 00:16:41.769 --> 00:16:44.070 brotherhood. Which American democracy was not 00:16:44.070 --> 00:16:46.509 delivering. Not at all. And this attraction led 00:16:46.509 --> 00:16:49.940 him on this incredible adventure in 1932. He 00:16:49.940 --> 00:16:51.799 was invited to the Soviet Union with a group 00:16:51.799 --> 00:16:53.860 of other black Americans to make a film about 00:16:53.860 --> 00:16:56.299 race in the U .S. A propaganda film? A propaganda 00:16:56.299 --> 00:16:58.679 film, yeah. And the film never got made, but 00:16:58.679 --> 00:17:01.480 Hughes used the trip brilliantly. He traveled 00:17:01.480 --> 00:17:03.600 all through the Soviet Union into parts of Central 00:17:03.600 --> 00:17:06.019 Asia that were totally closed to Westerners. 00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:08.680 And seeing people of color there, treated with 00:17:08.680 --> 00:17:12.339 a level of dignity he never saw at home. That 00:17:12.339 --> 00:17:15.000 must have been powerful. It was deeply impactful. 00:17:15.279 --> 00:17:17.519 And the reason the film got canceled is fascinating. 00:17:17.859 --> 00:17:20.400 The writer, Arthur Koestler, who was a friend 00:17:20.400 --> 00:17:22.920 of his, said the Soviets dropped it because they 00:17:22.920 --> 00:17:25.259 had just gotten official diplomatic recognition 00:17:25.259 --> 00:17:27.359 from the U .S. And they didn't want to rock the 00:17:27.359 --> 00:17:29.940 boat. they needed to tone down the anti -American 00:17:29.940 --> 00:17:32.940 propaganda. So Hughes' film was a casualty of 00:17:32.940 --> 00:17:35.160 high -level politics. He also worked as a war 00:17:35.160 --> 00:17:37.220 correspondent during the Spanish Civil War. For 00:17:37.220 --> 00:17:39.559 the Baltimore Afro -American, yeah. He was in 00:17:39.559 --> 00:17:42.519 Madrid broadcasting live, reporting on the fight 00:17:42.519 --> 00:17:45.299 against fascism, which he saw as connected to 00:17:45.299 --> 00:17:47.440 the fight for racial justice everywhere. And 00:17:47.440 --> 00:17:49.920 then when World War II starts, he was initially 00:17:49.920 --> 00:17:52.619 hesitant to support black involvement. Well, 00:17:52.680 --> 00:17:55.880 yeah. The hypocrisy was glaring. Why go fight 00:17:55.880 --> 00:17:57.980 for freedom abroad when you don't have it at 00:17:57.980 --> 00:18:00.839 home? But he eventually came around to supporting 00:18:00.839 --> 00:18:03.440 the war. With a specific strategy in mind. Yes. 00:18:03.519 --> 00:18:06.079 He became a huge champion of the Double V campaign. 00:18:06.619 --> 00:18:09.619 Victory over fascism abroad and victory over 00:18:09.619 --> 00:18:12.660 Jim Crow at home. That became a powerful rallying 00:18:12.660 --> 00:18:15.559 cry for the whole post -war civil rights movement. 00:18:15.740 --> 00:18:18.539 It really did. But this long history of left 00:18:18.539 --> 00:18:21.420 -leaning associations. It eventually caught up 00:18:21.420 --> 00:18:23.500 with him. The McCarthy hearings. McCarthy hearings 00:18:23.500 --> 00:18:27.779 in 1953. He was called to testify before Senator 00:18:27.779 --> 00:18:30.420 Joseph McCarthy's committee. It was an incredibly 00:18:30.420 --> 00:18:32.579 dangerous moment. A career ending moment for 00:18:32.579 --> 00:18:35.180 many people. Absolutely. And Hughes had to be 00:18:35.180 --> 00:18:37.920 very, very careful. He stuck to his line that 00:18:37.920 --> 00:18:40.240 his interest in communism was emotional, not 00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:42.460 theoretical. He basically said he hadn't read 00:18:42.460 --> 00:18:44.799 the books. He just felt the injustice. And there's 00:18:44.799 --> 00:18:46.660 evidence that this pressure worked. He'd been 00:18:46.660 --> 00:18:49.000 through a secret, intimidating interrogation. 00:18:49.680 --> 00:18:52.220 before the public hearing. Right. And after he 00:18:52.220 --> 00:18:54.680 testified, he very clearly and strategically 00:18:54.680 --> 00:18:57.279 distanced himself from his more radical past. 00:18:57.579 --> 00:18:59.799 And you can see it in his work. Oh, definitely. 00:19:00.059 --> 00:19:02.779 When he put together his selected poems in 1959, 00:19:03.180 --> 00:19:06.119 he left out all of his radical socialist poems 00:19:06.119 --> 00:19:09.240 from the 1930s. Which angered some people on 00:19:09.240 --> 00:19:11.259 the left. It did. They saw it as a betrayal. 00:19:11.920 --> 00:19:14.460 But for Hughes, it was likely a matter of survival. 00:19:14.779 --> 00:19:17.240 He had to make that choice to keep his career, 00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:20.220 to keep being able to work at all. OK, so moving 00:19:20.220 --> 00:19:23.420 from that very public political pressure to something 00:19:23.420 --> 00:19:25.299 much more private. Let's talk about the debate 00:19:25.299 --> 00:19:27.319 around his sexuality. Yeah, this is something 00:19:27.319 --> 00:19:29.880 academics have discussed for a long time. The 00:19:29.880 --> 00:19:32.599 consensus is that he remained closeted his entire 00:19:32.599 --> 00:19:34.779 life. And the reasons for that were practical. 00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:37.980 Very practical. He relied on the support of black 00:19:37.980 --> 00:19:40.359 churches, black organizations, the black press. 00:19:41.179 --> 00:19:42.940 Institutions that were socially conservative. 00:19:43.400 --> 00:19:45.619 Coming out would have been professional suicide. 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:47.700 So what's the evidence that scholars point to? 00:19:47.819 --> 00:19:50.039 Well, they see what they call homosexual codes 00:19:50.039 --> 00:19:52.960 in some of those poems, like Cafe 3AM. There 00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:55.039 are also unpublished poems he wrote to a man 00:19:55.039 --> 00:19:57.960 he called Beauty. But his main biographer, Arnold 00:19:57.960 --> 00:20:01.900 Rampersad, is a bit more cautious. He is. Rampersad 00:20:01.900 --> 00:20:04.839 concluded that Hughes was probably asexual and 00:20:04.839 --> 00:20:07.319 passive in his sexual relationships. But he did 00:20:07.319 --> 00:20:10.299 note that Hughes found black men sexually fascinating 00:20:10.299 --> 00:20:13.700 and preferred them. So it's complex. And the 00:20:13.700 --> 00:20:15.859 need for secrecy definitely shaped his public 00:20:15.859 --> 00:20:18.480 image. While his poetry was what defined him 00:20:18.480 --> 00:20:20.799 for critics, for the general public, especially 00:20:20.799 --> 00:20:23.559 later in his career, he was known for one character 00:20:23.559 --> 00:20:26.930 above all else. Chessie B. Simple. Simple. Simple. 00:20:27.109 --> 00:20:29.970 The creation of Simple was an act of pure genius. 00:20:30.049 --> 00:20:33.009 He was this everyday working class guy in Harlem 00:20:33.009 --> 00:20:35.730 who would just muse about life. And those musings 00:20:35.730 --> 00:20:37.990 ran in his Chicago Defender column for those 00:20:37.990 --> 00:20:41.089 20 years. And Simple allowed Hughes to talk about 00:20:41.089 --> 00:20:43.990 really serious political things, civil rights, 00:20:44.269 --> 00:20:47.349 poverty, racism, but through humor and common 00:20:47.349 --> 00:20:50.450 sense. It made the message accessible and it 00:20:50.450 --> 00:20:52.970 protected Hughes from backlash. It wasn't Langston 00:20:52.970 --> 00:20:54.569 Hughes, the intellectual preacher. It was just 00:20:54.569 --> 00:20:57.049 simple talking in a bar. Exactly. And people 00:20:57.049 --> 00:20:59.170 loved him. Those columns were collected into 00:20:59.170 --> 00:21:01.089 books like Simple Speaks His Mind, and they were 00:21:01.089 --> 00:21:04.130 hugely popular. But as the civil rights movement 00:21:04.130 --> 00:21:07.369 evolved into the more militant black power era, 00:21:07.970 --> 00:21:11.630 Hughes started to seem a little out of step to 00:21:11.630 --> 00:21:13.569 the younger generation. Yeah, there was definitely 00:21:13.569 --> 00:21:16.049 some tension there. Younger writers like James 00:21:16.049 --> 00:21:20.089 Baldwin saw his work as a bit out of date. maybe 00:21:20.089 --> 00:21:23.529 too focused on folk culture and not confrontational 00:21:23.529 --> 00:21:25.789 enough for the new era. And Hughes had his own 00:21:25.789 --> 00:21:28.210 criticisms of them. He did. He found some of 00:21:28.210 --> 00:21:30.930 the new writers over -intellectual or vulgar. 00:21:31.049 --> 00:21:33.190 He wasn't a fan of the profanity and what he 00:21:33.190 --> 00:21:35.690 saw as an over -emphasis on criminality. But 00:21:35.690 --> 00:21:38.009 he never stopped being a mentor, did he? Never. 00:21:38.109 --> 00:21:39.869 He was always trying to help the next generation. 00:21:40.210 --> 00:21:42.450 He discovered Alice Walker. He was always giving 00:21:42.450 --> 00:21:44.789 advice, making introductions. He saw himself 00:21:44.789 --> 00:21:47.009 as a Negro writer, not the Negro writer. That 00:21:47.009 --> 00:21:49.789 humility is really something. It is. And he did 00:21:49.789 --> 00:21:52.089 try to bridge that generational gap. His last 00:21:52.089 --> 00:21:54.369 book of poetry published after he died was called 00:21:54.369 --> 00:21:56.609 The Panther and the Lash. A clear reference to 00:21:56.609 --> 00:21:59.369 the Black Power movement. Yes. It was his attempt 00:21:59.369 --> 00:22:02.349 to show solidarity, but to do it with his own 00:22:02.349 --> 00:22:05.230 unique artistic skill and control, maybe with 00:22:05.230 --> 00:22:07.230 less of the raw anger of some of the younger 00:22:07.230 --> 00:22:11.869 poets. Hughes died on May 20, 1967. He was 66. 00:22:12.410 --> 00:22:15.849 And his final resting place is... It's just perfect. 00:22:16.029 --> 00:22:18.869 His ashes are interred under a medallion in the 00:22:18.869 --> 00:22:21.230 floor of the Schomburg Center for Research and 00:22:21.230 --> 00:22:23.410 Black Culture in Harlem. Right at the entrance. 00:22:23.710 --> 00:22:25.890 At the entrance. And the medallion is an African 00:22:25.890 --> 00:22:28.609 cosmogram called Rivers. And in the middle of 00:22:28.609 --> 00:22:31.690 it is that line from his first great poem. My 00:22:31.690 --> 00:22:34.390 soul has grown deep like the rivers. It brings 00:22:34.390 --> 00:22:36.890 his entire life full circle. It's an incredible 00:22:36.890 --> 00:22:38.930 honor. And the other honors are just, you know, 00:22:38.950 --> 00:22:41.670 staggering. The Spingarn Medal, a Guggenheim, 00:22:41.809 --> 00:22:43.990 postage stamps, streets named after him. His 00:22:43.990 --> 00:22:47.230 influence is just immeasurable. So as we wrap 00:22:47.230 --> 00:22:50.890 up this deep dive, you really see a life that... 00:22:51.099 --> 00:22:53.599 didn't just witness the 20th century black American 00:22:53.599 --> 00:22:56.819 experience. It helped shape it. Absolutely. You 00:22:56.819 --> 00:22:59.140 have the abolitionist roots, the lonely childhood 00:22:59.140 --> 00:23:01.519 saved by books, the Columbia dropout who finds 00:23:01.519 --> 00:23:03.500 his voice in the clubs of Harlem. He becomes 00:23:03.500 --> 00:23:05.880 the leader who writes the manifesto for a generation, 00:23:06.099 --> 00:23:08.500 telling them to define beauty on their own terms. 00:23:08.720 --> 00:23:10.859 And he's the global traveler, the political thinker 00:23:10.859 --> 00:23:13.319 who survives McCarthyism by being smarter and 00:23:13.319 --> 00:23:15.440 more strategic than his opponents. He spent his 00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:19.680 whole life trying to explain and illuminate the 00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:22.740 Negro condition. And he wasn't afraid of the 00:23:22.740 --> 00:23:24.839 uncomfortable truths, either within the black 00:23:24.839 --> 00:23:27.559 community or in America at large. Which brings 00:23:27.559 --> 00:23:29.839 us to a final thought for you, the listener. 00:23:30.019 --> 00:23:33.160 It's about his legacy today. You have this balance 00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:36.680 in his work between embracing the raw folk culture, 00:23:36.799 --> 00:23:40.880 the low life, and his later advice to angry young 00:23:40.880 --> 00:23:43.720 writers to be skilled. and objective so not just 00:23:43.720 --> 00:23:46.299 shout but to create lasting art right so the 00:23:46.299 --> 00:23:48.900 question is how does langston hughes life and 00:23:48.900 --> 00:23:50.920 work challenge artists today who are tackling 00:23:50.920 --> 00:23:53.599 social struggle after mccarthy he could have 00:23:53.599 --> 00:23:55.980 just written safe pretty poems for the rest of 00:23:55.980 --> 00:23:59.420 his life but he didn't no he took the anger the 00:23:59.420 --> 00:24:02.019 black power movement and he he refined it he 00:24:02.019 --> 00:24:03.980 distilled it into art that would last like in 00:24:03.980 --> 00:24:06.279 the panther and the lash so is the goal to just 00:24:06.279 --> 00:24:08.480 reflect the immediate anger of a moment which 00:24:08.480 --> 00:24:11.000 is necessary or is it to do what hughes did to 00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:13.029 try and create something more lyrical, more enduring, 00:24:13.130 --> 00:24:15.490 that illuminates the human condition in a way 00:24:15.490 --> 00:24:17.450 that will still speak to people 50 years from 00:24:17.450 --> 00:24:19.869 now. He taught us that sometimes the most revolutionary 00:24:19.869 --> 00:24:22.769 act isn't a shout. It's an unforgettable rhythm. 00:24:23.029 --> 00:24:25.109 And that's something to think about. Indeed. 00:24:25.609 --> 00:24:27.490 We'll leave you there, standing on that mountain, 00:24:27.609 --> 00:24:30.450 free within yourself, reflecting on the enduring 00:24:30.450 --> 00:24:34.109 power of the poet who dreamed America. Thanks 00:24:34.109 --> 00:24:35.410 for joining us for The Deep Dive.