[A-List] Black History Month - Remembering Langston Hughes

[Carlos Rovira <carlitoboricua@xxxxxxxxx>]

Good morning, Revolution:
You're the very best friend
I ever had.
We gonna pal around together from
now on.
? From "Good Morning Revolution"
by Langston Hughes (1932)

Born Feb. 1, 1902, Langston Hughes was memorialized by African American magazines
and newspapers of his time as the "Poet Laureate for the African American
people." His poems spoke out against racism and national oppression and agitated
for working class liberation, among other topics.

Hughes felt the sting of poverty and racism from an early age. From his first job
as a hotel janitor in the seventh grade, until he became a full-time writer at
age 30, he worked many low-wage jobs.

He began writing poetry in eighth grade and was named "class poet" at his school
in Illinois. Later, he moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he discovered his love for
politics and learned about the struggles of workers all over the world.

In 1917, after the Bolsheviks seized state power in the name of the working
class, Hughes and his classmates held a celebration for the revolution and its
leader, Vladimir Lenin. Hughes was interested in the ideas put forward by the
revolution?social freedom, equality and an end to economic exploitation. He
thought private property should be controlled by the people who toil to keep
society moving.

Hughes entered Columbia University in 1921. He remained at Columbia for only one
year, feeling frustrated by the racism of his white peers. But he had discovered
Harlem. In the next few years, Hughes became deeply enmeshed in the flourishing
Black arts and culture scene in Harlem?known as the Harlem Renaissance. His
poetry and writing began to receive awards; he was becoming well known.

Poems on revolution

During the Great Depression, Hughes grew more politically active, becoming a
communist and working on many communist-led campaigns. He participated in the
campaign to free the Scottsboro boys?nine innocent Black youths framed for raping
two white women?and spoke out on behalf of the Spanish Republic and the Soviet
Union.

Bourgeois literary critics were incensed with the overt political content of
Hughes's 1930s work. During the 1930s he wrote not only poetry, but also fiction,
plays, essays, songs and news articles. His poetry was frequently published in
communist periodicals. The critics berated Hughes for his writings on revolution.

In 1932, he went to the Soviet Union, which he admired as a symbol of hope.
Hughes disagreed with the negative depiction of the socialist country in the U.S.
bourgeois press: "The daily papers picture the Bolsheviks as the greatest devils
on earth, but I couldn't see how they could be so bad if they had done away with
race hatred and landlords?two evils that I knew first hand."

He wrote poems like "One More `S' in the U. S. A." to pay tribute to the Soviet
Union and agitate for social change within the United States:

Put one more S in the U.S.A.
To make it Soviet.
One more S in the U.S.A.
Oh, we'll live to see it yet.
When the land belongs to the farmers
And the factories to the working men?
The U.S.A. when we take control
Will be the U.S.S.A. then. ?
But we can't join hands together
So long as whites are lynching black,
So black and white in one union fight
And get on the right track.
By Texas, or Georgia, or Alabama leg
Come together, fellow workers
Black and white can all be red:

Put one more S in U.S.A.

Hughes wanted a just society and wrote passionately against imperialist war. In
his poem about World War I called "The Colored Soldier," he points out that the
war was not waged for "democracy" and that returning African American soldiers
were greeted with lynchings at the hands of white supremacists.

Targeted by the racist ruling class

Hughes continued to advocate for the working class throughout his life, despite
attempts by the U.S. ruling class to silence the movement. He was targeted by the
anti-communist House Un-American Activities Committee, spearheaded by arch-racist
Joseph McCarthy. He answered the attacks leveled against him in a 1963 statement,
"Concerning Red Baiting": "The organizations which have attacked me are, for the
most part, the most anti-Negro, anti-Jewish, anti-labor groups in our country."

Although no longer politically active, Hughes continued to write in the 1960s,
giving support to the burgeoning Civil Rights movement in poems like "Birmingham
Sunday," among others.

Langston Hughes died on May 22, 1967, in New York City. His words continue to
inspire African Americans and progressives. As a writer and activist, he fought
against the ravages of the capitalist system.

Articles may be reprinted with credit to Socialism and Liberation magazine.

http://socialismandliberation.org/PSLsite/index.html

Party for Socialism & Liberation
New York City Office
Adam Clayton Powell Blvd.
New York City, NY 10030
(212)694-8720
NYC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



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