Langston Hughes

As a poet, Langston Hughes wrote about people and situations that were familiar to him. The characters in his poems and short stories were the people from his neighborhood and in his family. In my own family, my sisters would often recite his poems as if they were their own. From his gospelized plays, blues poems, and advocacy for African American art forms, Langston Hughes has always been a part of my life. 

Langston’s Beginnings 

Before Langston Hughes was born, his parents had moved from Oklahoma to Missouri in search of opportunities for Langston’s father, James Hughes, to take the bar exam and practice as a lawyer. However, during that time, neither of these states permitted black people to practice law. This not only caused James to resent America’s treatment of black people, but also to resent his own blackness. To seek refuge, James Hughes eventually relocated to Mexico in search of greater opportunity. 

After graduating from high school in Cleveland, Ohio (my hometown), Langston Hughes came to New York, enrolled in Columbia University, and fell in love with Harlem. He was exhilarated by the high concentration of black culture in this part of the city, however, this was at odds with the curriculum at Columbia, so he dropped out of school, later enrolling in Lincoln University, an historically black college.

Before Langston Hughes had relocated to New York, he visited his father in Mexico. In a turning point in Langston Hughes’ life, he realized that America’s treatment of black people was the source of his father’s self-hatred, so Langston left Mexico determined to create art to uplift black people and the marginalized. 

Langston Hughes is deemed the Poet Laureate of the Harlem Renaissance, and was one of the first to write about black being beautiful. His writing elevated the lives of everyday working-class people, and in his work, he dreamed the dreams of oppressed people and races, even inspiring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

As a wannabe songwriter, Langston Hughes traveled with his record collection. He composed songs, song lyrics, and even wrote a children’s introductory book on jazz. He once said that “words with music could reach more people than words on paper.” A significant percentage of Langston’s output involved collaborations with composers. Even now, more than 50 years after his death, his poetry still inspires contemporary composers and playwrights, and his gospel musicals still draw large audiences. 

One of his earliest poems, ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’, speaks to the vast, proud history and global presence of African peoples. Composer Howard Swanson set the poem to music in 1949, and his career was launched when Marian Anderson programmed it in her recitals.

Langston Hughes and Margaret Bonds 

First discovering ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’ as a college freshman at Northwestern University in 1929, pianist Margaret Bonds once said that this Langston Hughes poem saved her: 

"I was in this prejudiced university, this terribly prejudiced place…. I was looking in the basement of the Evanston Public Library where they had the poetry. I came in contact with this wonderful poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” and I’m sure it helped my feelings of security. Because in that poem he tells how great the black man is. And if I had any misgivings, which I would have to have – here you are in a setup where the restaurants won’t serve you and you’re going to college, you’re sacrificing, trying to get through school – and I know that poem helped save me."  

After earning a master's degree, Margaret Bonds began setting Langston’s poetry to music. Margaret met Langston Hughes in 1936, and after her failed attempt to start a music school in Chicago, Langston convinced her to move to New York. She did, and throughout the 1940s, she and Langston Hughes created songs to support the troops during the Second World War. They toured together, performing and lecturing on black music, including a concert at Carnegie Hall. 

Back in 1926, Langston Hughes wrote an article entitled ‘The Negro and the Racial Mountain’ in which he proclaimed that black artists would “build our own temples, for tomorrow”. Hughes resisted contorting himself or his artistic aesthetic to fit European forms and standards, a virtue that Margaret Bonds also shared. Bonds’ musical settings typically addressed the musical affects that Langston basked in, like syncopation, blues riffs, and jazzing. They worked together for nearly thirty years, promoting and creating art about black experiences using black dialect. Together, they created works for theater, such as ‘Shakespeare in Harlem’, as well as art songs like ‘Three Dream Portraits’.  

In 1954, they began writing their most successful work, ‘The Ballad of the Brown King’, a cantata about the three wise men at the birth of Jesus, one being an African. This work would later be dedicated to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., with whom Langston shared many private correspondences (he even traveled with Dr. King to Nigeria in 1960). The team of Bonds and Hughes spanned 30 years up until Langston Hughes’ death in 1967. The last work they wrote together was ‘Simon Bore the Cross’, an Easter oratorio. 

This lengthy relationship was in stark contrast to the ones Langston forged with composers William Grant Still and Kurt Weill. Although artistically productive, working with these men was often discouraging for Langston Hughes. While working with Still and Weill in the 1940’s, Hughes told his agent “show business, even opera, is born of the Devil”. 

Langston Hughes and William Grant Still 

Like Langston Hughes, William Grant Still moved to New York during the Harlem Renaissance. After a brief stint as an oboist in the National Guard Band, Still came to New York to arrange music for blues composer W.C. Handy and began composing orchestral music and art songs. Two of his early songs, ‘A Black Pierrot’ and ‘The Breath of a Rose’, set poetry from ‘The Weary Blues’, Langston Hughes’ first book of poetry. 

Hughes and Still first met each another in Los Angeles in the 1930s. William Grant Still had recently become the first African American composer to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra, and by 1949, Still and Hughes had become the first African American composer and librettist to have an opera performed by a major American opera company. 

But the journey was troubling for both men. Their opera was called ‘Troubled Island’, written about the 19th-century Haitian Revolt. Langston had already spent considerable time in Haiti and had written ‘Emperor in Haiti,’ a successful play about the Haitian revolt. However, opera was very expensive, Euro-centric, and was traditionally an enterprise for the wealthy, so they struggled for more than a decade to get the opera produced. This strained the relationship between Hughes and Still and brought to the fore America’s reluctance in seeing black protest and militance on stage. 

The waiting exacerbated the differences between composer and librettist; both were devoted to racial uplift but went about it differently. For instance, William Grant Still was much more conservative than Hughes – he supported Senator Joseph McCarthy, while Langston was an accused communist sympathizer and loathed McCarthyism. Then, Still didn’t travel abroad, while Langston traveled widely, even living outside of the States, embedding himself with the working class. Finally, Langston Hughes preferred to work collaboratively, but William Grant Still felt that as the composer, he always had the final say.  

However, what caused the most consternation between them was fundraising for the project. Raising the necessary money to produce the opera was daunting. Nearly $45,000 had to be generated, which eluded them for 10 years despite the support of conductor Leopold Stokowski and New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. 

During those years, Hughes was also working on ‘Street Scene’ with Kurt Weill, and for a bit, Hughes temporarily moved to Spain. Meanwhile any changes needed in the libretto for ‘Troubled Island’ were left to Still’s wife, Verna Arvy. However, leading up to the final production, this business arrangement resulted in major legal disputes regarding rights and royalties between Hughes and Arvy.

After having been rejected multiple times by the Metropolitan Opera, ‘Troubled Island’ was finally given three performances by New York City Opera in March 1949. Although the audience stood in ovation, New York critics panned it, and it wasn’t performed again during Langston’s lifetime. William Grant Still didn’t have another opera performed until the 1960s.  

Langston Hughes and Kurt Weill 

Langston Hughes famously said, "I would rather have a kitchenette in Harlem than a mansion in Westchester.” For the last 20 years of his life, he didn’t have to do either, thanks to Kurt Weill and Elmer Rice. 

‘Street Scene’ was a successful play by Elmer Rice, who approached Langston Hughes with the idea of taking it to Broadway as an opera musical. With music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Langston Hughes, ‘Street Scene’ successfully melded European opera and the American musical. It told the story of two summer days in New York City as experienced by tenants living in an apartment building. Although the characters were white, they were ordinary working-class folk. These were the people Langston Hughes knew and cared about, and who had inspired his writing for decades. 

While Hughes was studying at Lincoln University, Weill was composing opera and experimenting with ragtime, blues, and jazz, so when he worked with Langston Hughes on this musical, he did so with a fearless appreciation of black culture. The assignment required Hughes, Weill, and playwright Elmer Rice to spend weeks together observing New York’s ethnic communities, night clubs and Harlem. The three men also spent time on Elmer Rice’s estate in Stamford Connecticut and on Weill’s farm in New York. But like ‘Troubled Island’, Hughes had to negotiate rights and royalties, involving lawyers and agents. For relief and income, he occasionally left New York for the poetry touring circuit. 

When ‘Street Scene’ opened in December 1946, it was a huge success. Whereas ‘Troubled Island’ saw three performances, Street Scene saw one hundred forty-eight, and quickly became the most financially rewarding project to date for Hughes. With the steady income from this project, Langston was able to buy a home on 127th Street in Harlem. 

Langston Hughes would go on to collaborate on many other musical projects including operas, oratorios and gospel musicals. He said he always wanted to be a songwriter, and through collaborations like these, in a way, he was. 

Ten years ago, I moved a few blocks away from where Langston Hughes lived. Now, every day, I see the buildings and addresses he wrote about. I see his name on landmarks and sit in the auditorium that bears his name. I even met Raoul Abdul, the last secretary to work for him.  Thanks to Langston Hughes, I see beauty. I see it in my neighbors – in their faces, stories and laughter. That’s what Langston Hughes did, and in his work, he celebrates the good, bad and the ugly. In all that he did, I believe he worked to make the world more livable. 

- Written by Terrance McKnight

Terrance McKnight is a top WQXR host, an Artistic Advisor for the Harlem Chamber Players, and serves on the board of the Bagby Foundation and the MacDowell Colony.

Discover music written and influenced by Langston Hughes and much more in unCLASSIFIED’s Hues of Music: Black Voices playlist!