Via nypl: Happy 111th birthday to the legendary American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist Langston Hughes. At The New York Public Library you can find ample Langston Hughes information, including photos (the one featured here is from our Manuscripts and Archives Division), papers , books, and films. Of course, you can also go over to the NYPL’s great Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and visit the Langston Hughes Auditorium.
Langston Hughes, always a Vintage Black Glamour favorite, was born 111 years ago today in Joplin, Missouri. This 1932 photograph was taken by his good friend, Carl Van Vechten and was eventually given as a gift by another friend, the illustrator Prentiss Taylor, to the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
Guests at a breakfast party for Langston Hughes in 1925 including E. Franklin Frazier, Hubert Delany and Rudolph Fisher. hosted by Regina Anderson (Andrews) and Ethel Ray at 580 St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem. Photo: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library
I am a bit obsessed with this awesome picture. It’s Hilda Simms, Langston Hughes (bottom right) and actor Canada Lee (center in white shirt) at a party with other artists around 1944. I recognize the women on the left - but I am drawing a blank on their names so, if you know, please let me know in the comment section. Photo by George Karger/Pix Inc./Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.
Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Diahann Carroll and Harry Belafonte in the same photo? YES! Mr. Hughes wrote the script and Mr. Belafonte produced this television special called “The Strollin’ 20’s”, a celebration of the Harlem Renaissance. The show aired on CBS on February 21, 1966 and this iconic photo was taken by Rowland Scherman.
From left: Comedian George Kirby, Sidney Poitier, singer Gloria Lynne, Langston Hughes (he wrote the script for the show!), Harry Belafonte, singer Joe Williams, Diahann Carroll, Nipsey Russell, Paula Kelly and, yes, Duke Ellington.
Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Diahann Carroll and Harry Belafonte in the same photo? YES! Mr. Hughes wrote the script and Mr. Belafonte produced this television special called “The Strollin’ 20’s”, a celebration of the Harlem Renaissance. The show aired on CBS on February 21, 1966.
From left: Comedian George Kirby, Sidney Poitier, singer Gloria Lynne, Langston Hughes (he wrote the script for the show!), Harry Belafonte, singer Joe Williams, Diahann Carroll, Nipsey Russell, Paula Kelly and, yes, Duke Ellington.
I am currently reading “The Life of Langston Hughes, Volume 1: 1902-1941” by Arnold Rampersad so, especially as I work on the Vintage Black Glamour book, Langston Hughes is often on my mind. In this photo by Nickolas Muray taken in 1923, Mr. Hughes was about 21 years old.
Langston Hughes and Dorothy West, on their way to Russia in 1933, photographed by Carl Van Vechten.
Langston Hughes, Charles S. Johnson, E. Franklin Frazier, Rudolph Fisher and Hubert Delany (brother of the Delaney Sisters) overlooking St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem in the 1920s. Photo via the Schomburg Center.
Roland Hayes, the brilliant tenor who became the first African-American man to earn international fame as a concert vocalist, photographed by Addison Scurlock in 1940. Born to former slaves in Curryville, Georgia in 1887, he attended Fisk University and briefly toured with the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Early in his career, he was turned down by talent managers because he was Black so, he invested in himself: He raised money and arranged and financed his own concert performances,which included Negro spirituals, lieder and arias by Schubert, Tchaikovsky, and Mozart. In 1942, Mr. Hayes’s wife, Helen and daughter, Afrika, sat in a whites-only area of a shoe store and were thrown out of the store. When Mr. Hayes defended his family, he was beaten and he and his wife were arrested - and the governor of Georgia was absolutely fine with it. The incident inspired Langston Hughes to compose the poem, Roland Hayes Beaten. Mr. Hayes would later teach at Boston University and would go on to celebrate more than 50 years on the concert stage before his death in 1977.
Langston Hughes, pictured in his office in 1962, was born 110 years today in Joplin, Missouri.
