Nearly 50 years after his passing, Langston Hughes is still recognized as one of America's greatest writers. He’s revered as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance and an innovator of jazz poetry. The City College Center for the Arts is celebrating Hughes’ enduring legacy in the Harlem community and beyond with a dramatic reading and signing of “Letters from Langston: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Red Scare and Beyond,” the most recent book of Hughes’ correspondence.
Edited by Evelyn Louise Crawford and MaryLouise Patterson, this indispensable volume of letters between Hughes and four leftist confidants sheds vivid light on his life and politics. It
collects their stories in an era of uncertainty and reveals their visions of an idealized world—one without hunger, war, racism, and class oppression.
Actors Vinie Burrows, Eisa Davis, Eric Coleman, Beethoven Oden and Stu Richel will read from the book to music by NEA Jazz Master Randy Weston. Woodie King, Jr., an Obie Award winner and founder of New Federal Theatre, will direct. Robin D.G. Kelley, who wrote the book’s foreword, will emcee. Copies of the book will be on sale at the event on October 7 in CCNY’s Aaron Davis Hall starting at 6:45 p.m. Click here for ticket information.
Hughes’ legacy lives on at CCNY through course offerings in the Division of Humanities and the Arts that study his writing and the annual Langston Hughes Festival at which the Langston Hughes Medal is presented.
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided low-cost, high-quality education for New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. More than 15,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture; School of Education; Grove School of Engineering; Sophie Davis Biomedical Education/CUNY School of Medicine, and Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership. U.S. News, Princeton Review and Forbes all rank City College among the best colleges and universities in the United States.