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Literature and Culture
Langston Hughes, Communist?
Vignette on his time he came to D.C. at the behest of Joe McCarthy
Langston Hughes, the poet, was a Communist, right? Socialist?
If you could ask the late D.C. poet, Sterling A. Brown, he would laugh, take a drag on his pipe, and say — you are kidding asking that question, right?
Allegedly, an F.B.I. agent once asked Brown this on the record. Brown told him, if you are a Negro, have completed the 7th grade, and are against lynching, you are a Communist in America (paraphrase from an account by Lawrence P. Jackson in The Indignant Generation).
Brown followed that up with, he has finished the 8th grade and is against far more than just lynching and he is a Negro (Black). Brown, in the dozens, proved again with his retort that he was undefeated. I have no idea if this actually happened but it is funny.
Years later, when I researched Hughes’ life, I came across an incident where he was flagged by Senator Joe McCarthy during the Red Scare period of the 1950s. It was something hadn’t heard about previously and was a scary moment for Hughes. Many an artist had gotten burned professionally during this period.
