| The
Langston
Hughes
Festival
Award
The
Langston
Hughes
Medal
of The
City
College
is awarded
each
year
to a
distinguished
writer
of African
descent
whose
literary
work
has endeavored
to engage,
challenge
and question
their
cultural
milieu
in the
tradition
of Langston
Hughes.
In 1973,
the late
Raymond
R. Patterson,
Professor
of English
at The
City
College,
founded
the Langston
Hughes
Festival
to celebrate
Langston
Hughes’s
vision
of himself
as an
African
American
citizen-poet—in
his own
words,
“a
human
being
{who}
must
live
within
his time,
with
and for
his people,
and within
the boundaries
of his
country,”—by
calling
attention
to the
universality
of the
local
values
which
form
such
“boundaries.”
Since
1978,
the Langston
Hughes
Medal
of The
City
College
has been
awarded
to more
than
thirty
writers.
Those
previously
honored
with
the Langston
Hughes
Medal
of The
City
College
include:
James
Baldwin
(1978),
Gwendolyn
Brooks
(1979),
John
Oliver
Killens
(1980),
Toni
Cade
Bambara
(1981),
Paule
Marshall
(1981),
Toni
Morrison
(1981),
Sterling
A Brown
(1982),
Margaret
Walker
Alexander
(1983),
Ralph
W. Ellison
(1984),
Raymond
R. Patterson
(1986),
Dennis
Brutus
(1987),
Alice
Walker
(1988),
Amiri
Baraka
(1989),
Alice
Childress
(1990),
Maya
Angelou
(1991),
August
Wilson
(1992),
Chinua
Achebe
(1993),
Ernest
J. Gaines
(1994),
Ishmael
Reed
(1995),
Nikki
Giovanni
(1996),
Albert
Murray
(1997),
George
Lamming
(1998),
Sonia
Sanchez
(1999),
Wolé
Soyinka
(2000),
Jayne
Cortez
(2002),
Derek
Walcott
(2002),
Lucille
Clifton
(2003),
James
A. Emmanuel
(2003),
Arnold
Rampersad
(2003),
Sekou
Sundiata
(2003),
and John
Edgar
Wideman
(2004).
Lawrence
F. Sykes
of Rhode
Island
College
designed
The City
College
Langston
Hughes
Award
medallion
from
a photograph
in the
Langston
Hughes
papers
at University
(courtesy
of the
late
George
Houston
Bass).
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