{"id":20055,"date":"2020-03-21T22:04:45","date_gmt":"2020-03-21T22:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=20055"},"modified":"2020-03-25T09:09:23","modified_gmt":"2020-03-25T09:09:23","slug":"langston-hughes-domestic-pariah-international-superstar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/langston-hughes-domestic-pariah-international-superstar\/","title":{"rendered":"Langston Hughes \u2013 domestic pariah, international superstar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jason Miller<\/a>, North Carolina State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

A leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, the inspiration behind Lorraine Hansberry\u2019s play \u201cA Raisin in the Sun<\/a>\u201d and an uncompromising voice for social justice, Langston Hughes is heralded as one of America\u2019s greatest poets.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always this way. During his career, Hughes was routinely harassed by his own government. And the nation\u2019s literati, balking at his subversive politics, tended to overlook his work.<\/p>\n

But the opposite was true abroad, in places like France, Nigeria and Cuba, where Hughes had legions of devoted readers who were some of the first to recognize the promise and power of the poet\u2019s words. In my new book, \u201cLangston Hughes: Critical Lives<\/a>,\u201d I trace Hughes\u2019 budding international stardom, and how it clashed with the hostility he faced back home.<\/p>\n

Building a fan base<\/h2>\n

Growing up in America, Hughes had experienced racism firsthand. As he matured as poet and writer, he started looking beyond America\u2019s borders, curious to learn more about how racism impacted different cultures.<\/p>\n

Between 1924 and his death in 1967, Hughes made trips to places as varied as Italy, Russia, England, Nigeria and Ghana.<\/p>\n

During a visit to Cuba in 1930, Hughes met a young Cuban poet named Nicol\u00e1s Guill\u00e9n. Hughes had already successfully written dozens of poems inspired by the 12-bar structures, cadences, rhymes and subject matter of blues music. Over the course of several late-night dinners at Lolita\u2019s restaurant in Havana, Hughes encouraged Guill\u00e9n to do the same with his home country\u2019s music.<\/p>\n

Within days of Hughes\u2019 departure, Guill\u00e9n started writing poems making use of Cuba\u2019s \u201cson tradition<\/a>,\u201d a form of popular dance music. This was a key moment in the development of an artist who would go on to become Cuba\u2019s national poet.<\/p>\n

Hughes was also the only figure of the Harlem Renaissance who traveled to Africa. After several trips to the continent, he became determined to promote the work of his African peers \u2013 writers like Bloke Modisane<\/a> and eventual Nobel Prize-winner Wole Soyinka<\/a>. So in 1960, he edited his anthology \u201cAfrican Treasury<\/a>,\u201d which introduced many in the West to some of Africa\u2019s greatest writers.<\/p>\n

In countries like Nigeria, Hughes needed no introduction. In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, dozens of Hughes\u2019 poems had appeared<\/a> in the country\u2019s newspapers and journals. After Nigeria elected Nnamdi Azikiwe<\/a>, its first native governor-general, in 1960, Azikiwe concluded his inaugural by reciting Hughes\u2019 poem \u201cYouth<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Hughes returned to Ghana and Senegal later in the decade, he was greeted like a superstar. Scores of his admirers trailed him in the streets of Dakar<\/a>, much in the way sports heroes are hounded by children for autographs.<\/p>\n

By the 1960s, Hughes\u2019 works were being translated into Russian, Italian, Swedish and Spanish. But the first scholarly study of his poetry appeared in France. Literary critic Jean Wagner\u2019s 1963 book \u201cBlack Poets of the United States<\/a>\u201d highlighted the talents of Hughes as both a poet and activist. Devoting over 100 pages to Hughes, Wagner noted that African Americans would never \u201cproduce a more fiery bard\u201d who was simultaneously \u201cone of the community refusing to stand apart as an individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the first black writer in the United States to make his living solely by writing<\/a>, Hughes ultimately galvanized scores of emerging writers and poets in Europe, Africa and South America. To them, Hughes represented a critical Western link to other people of color around the world. He was also an exemplar of the jazz and blues music they so revered. As a testament to Hughes\u2019 popularity abroad, it was Venezuela \u2013 not the United States \u2013 that sought to nominate him for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1960.<\/p>\n

Making enemies at home<\/h2>\n

Back in America, Hughes certainly had his admirers, especially among the African American community. But most establishment figures \u2013 in politics, in the media and in law enforcement \u2013 viewed him as a menace.<\/p>\n

As Hughes\u2019 international fame grew, he was being denigrated as a subversive and a communist by his own government. Hughes had been under FBI surveillance since at least 1933<\/a>, after he had traveled to Russia. Meanwhile his adamant calls for justice<\/a> in the Scottsboro case of 1931 \u2013 when eight young black men were falsely accused of raping two white prostitutes \u2013 earned him the ire of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Hughes\u2019 piercing critiques of capitalism<\/a> didn\u2019t help his cause, either. Hoover would go on to wage a personal vendetta against Hughes, building a 550-page file on him<\/a> that highlighted poems like \u201cGoodbye, Christ\u201d as evidence of his communist sympathies.<\/p>\n

Then, in 1953, Hughes was called to testify<\/a> before Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who wanted to use Hughes\u2019 previous support of communist causes and his supposedly subversive allegiances to target suspected \u201creds\u201d in the State Department.<\/p>\n

The man who was exalted by political leaders overseas, who found himself elbowing his way through throngs of adoring crowds abroad, was attacked as \u201cun-American\u201d by McCarthy\u2019s Senate Subcommittee.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Poet and author Langston Hughes speaks before the McCarthy Committee in Washington, D.C. on March 26, 1953.<\/span>
\nAP Photo<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hughes was understandably conflicted about his native country, and he explored this ambivalence in poems such as \u201cLet America Be America Again<\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n

    Let America be America again.\r\n    Let it be the dream it used to be.\r\n    Let it be the pioneer on the plain\r\n    Seeking a home where he himself is free.\r\n\r\n    (America never was America to me.)\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
That last line still resonates for many Americans \u2013 for those who have never known a golden age, nor tasted the nation\u2019s promise of dreams, justice and equality for all.<\/p>\n
How long, Hughes wondered in \u201cHarlem<\/a>,\u201d would we have to wait? And what was the cost of kicking the can down the road?<\/p>\n
  What happens to a dream deferred?\r\n\r\n  Does it dry up\r\n  like a raisin in the sun?\r\n  Or fester like a sore\u2014\r\n  And then run?\r\n  Does it stink like rotten meat?\r\n  Or crust and sugar over\u2014\r\n  like a syrupy sweet?\r\n\r\n  Maybe it just sags\r\n  like a heavy load.\r\n\r\n  Or does it explode?\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
Interestingly, Hughes had ended the first draft of this famous poem with the lines<\/a>, \u201cor does it atom-like explode \/ and leave deaths in its wake? Does it disappear \/ as might smoke somewhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
Writing on Aug. 7, 1948, the poet was keenly aware of what had happened only three years prior when nuclear bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.<\/p>\n
To me, this perfectly encapsulates Hughes\u2019 international appeal. The poet sympathized with those who had felt the harshest wrath of American power and politics. His intended audience was never just his fellow Americans who were grappling with fear and anxiety; it was anyone who had suffered great and devastating loss \u2013 an anguish that knows no language or borders.<\/p>\n
[Deep knowledge, daily.<\/em> Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s newsletter<\/a>.]\"The<\/p>\n
Jason Miller<\/a>, Professor of English, North Carolina State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jason Miller, North Carolina State University A leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, the inspiration behind Lorraine Hansberry\u2019s play \u201cA Raisin in the Sun\u201d and an uncompromising voice for social justice, Langston Hughes is heralded as one of America\u2019s greatest poets. It wasn\u2019t always this way. During his career, Hughes was routinely harassed by his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":20056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[501,3846,252,3963,7816,7817,4893,2033,7815],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20055"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20055"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20094,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20055\/revisions\/20094"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}