The Love Between Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks

Betsy Schlabach in AAIHS:

In 1986, African American poet Gwendolyn Brooks wrote of her life-long friend Langston Hughes: “‘WHAT was Langston Hughes? An overwhelmer. Long ago I felt it was proper to say he had ‘a long reach / strong speech / remedial fears / muscular tears.’ I gave him titles: ‘Helmsman, hatchet, headlight.’ And I suggested: ”See / one restless in the exotic time! and ever, / till the air is cured of its fever.'” Hughes and Brooks were both in Chicago‘s south side neighborhood, Bronzeville, at mid-twentieth century. Their friendship and poetry showcased a critical love of the black experience. Brooks described Hughes’ mission:

He judged himself the adequate appreciator of his own people, and he judged blacks ‘the most wonderful people in the world.’ He wanted to celebrate them in his poetry, fiction, essays and plays. He wanted to record their strengths, their resiliency, courage, humor.

Hughes first visited Chicago in 1918 as a sophomore in high school. His mother worked as a maid for a milliner in the Loop. Hughes took a job delivering hats, which exposed him to many different neighborhoods near downtown Chicago. On Sundays, he would stroll along the south side, which he said was more exciting than anything he had ever seen before. “Midnight was like day,” he exclaimed as he explored its crowded theaters and cabarets. It was vibrant, yes, but it was violent as well. He would experience racial violence first hand one day after he had wandered into a Polish neighborhood and was assaulted physically and verbally by a gang of white boys. He found Chicago “vast, ugly, brutal, and monotonous.” Brooks met Hughes when she was very young and grew to know him well enough “to observe that when subjected to offense and icy treatment because of his race, he was capable of jagged anger – and vengeance, instant or retroactive. And I have letters from him that reveal he could respond with real rage when he felt he was treated cruelly by other people.” Brooks confirmed that Bronzeville offered a young poet like herself plenty of material. She wrote: “If you wanted a poem you only had to look out a window. There was material always walking, running, screaming, or signing.” Born in Topeka Kansas, but raised in Bronzeville, Brooks published A Street in Bronzeville in 1945. Her work bravely confronted segregation, abortion, poverty, lynching, class, restrictive gender roles, and childhood dreams. Hers was a very honest portrait of Chicago

More here. (Note: At least one post throughout February will be in honor of Black History Month)