Letters from Langston: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Red Scare and Beyond

Abstract

The coeditors of Letters from Langston have created an homage to a more than forty-year friendship between their parents and the renowned, prolific writer Langston Hughes. A research venture into Hughes's papers at Yale University's Beinecke Library became for Evelyn Louise (“Nebby Lou”) Crawford, daughter of Matt Crawford and Evelyn (“Nebby”) Crawford, and MaryLouise (“Mary Lou”) Patterson, daughter of Louise (Thompson) and William L. Patterson, a profound rendezvous with their familial past. Their exploration led to another important discovery: their parents’ correspondence with Hughes preserved an informal history of political engagement. In choosing From the Harlem Renaissance to the Red Scare and Beyond as their subtitle, the coeditors sought to offer convincing evidence that Hughes was motivated by an “essential socialist impulse” that “changed and matured, but it did not disappear” (p. xi). The book is divided chronologically into three periods: “the tumultuous 1930s,” “the far-reaching 1940s,” and “the fearsome 1950s and the promising 1960s.” Each of these sections is subdivided thematically. Instead of simply inserting letters into each section, the editors, in effect, created a narrative by introducing each subdivision with well-informed historical context, teasing out and further explicating the significance of the correspondence. This gesture is complemented by informative notes and, at the end, a glossary of names. The story that emerges from the collection is one about friendship, devotion, love, and much more. But the dominant motif is the waxing and waning of political commitment.