There Was a Party for Langston

Content Warning: This section discusses enslavement and anti-Black racism and violence.

A line of figures, all with brown skin, walk into the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. A poster establishes the event, the opening of the Langston Hughes Auditorium, and the date, February 1991. Langston is the “king of letters” (8), who can transform words like “mother,” “America,” or “Harlem” and imbue them with feeling. Illustrations show Langston at a typewriter, with words and letters flowing out. His words form an image of a mother and son, with two interlocked pinkies above the Statue of Liberty and the streets of Harlem. In the library, people gather to celebrate Langston as a man who wrote “wake-up stories” and “rise and shine rhymes” (18-19). Illustrations show people whom Langston has influenced, like Martin Luther King, Jr.

Some people thought that Langston’s “spelling deserved yelling” (22), and they wanted to destroy his literary voice. Illustrations show books with Langston’s words being thrown on a fire. Langston was “brave” and wrote anyway, turning this hate into “laughter” and joy. His influence affected many people, which is why they want to celebrate his legacy in