John Lewis’s mentor James Lawson read a Czeslaw Milosz poem at Lewis’s funeral, showing how deeply he understood social activism.
Tag Archives: Langston Hughes
To Memorialize, Turn to Poetry
Langston Hughes on Evictions
When potentially 23 million American renters facing eviction, Langston Hughes’s “Ballad of a Landlord” feels timely.
We All Sing America
Between them, Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes do a good job of defining America.
I Am a Part of You and You of Me
Langston Hughes provides an important and humane voice at this point in time.
A Dream of Black and White Together
Spiritual Sunday My mother and I went to hear St. Olaf’s sublime choir at Sewanee’s All Saints Chapel Thursday night. (This in spite of the fact that we both attended St. Olaf’s archrival, Carleton College.) Amongst the program’s “peace on earth” offerings was an arrangement of Langston Hughes’s “I Dream a World.” I share it […]
Langston Hughes on the Dignity of Work
Langston Hughes understood working men and women as well as anyone, as his poem “Brass Spittoons” demonstrates.
Believing in the Great White Race
Teaching Langston Hughes’s “Ku Klux” in Ljubljana prompted the students to think of Europes neo-fascists.
Poems for Resisting Trump
New York columnist Roger Cohen suggests two poems for resisting Trumpism: “if” and “Harlem.”