This legendary writer from the twenties loved Harlem. Here are five spots associated with him and his era.
by Rich Watson
The Harlem Renaissance of the twenties was a time of growth for black artisans of many stripes. Langston Hughes was one of the biggest. The writer connected with various like-minded intellectuals to share their views on African-American culture and the future of black society in general.
Harlem was ground zero for this movement.
Growing up with the legacy of Langston Hughes
In my old neighborhood, there was (and still is) a library named for him—the Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center, to be precise. I remember, as a child, being aware of him as a vital part of black history through this place.
Later in life, I bought a book of his poetry. I looked through it again for this post. He employs a “street” vernacular to capture the voice of Harlem. It’s distinct and sharp, displaying the joys and sorrows of the black experience in the first half of the twentieth century.
Even in my younger years, I appreciated it.
Hughes in Harlem
Hughes’s childhood was in the Midwest, mostly in Kansas. He developed a great love of literature, but fell into poetry almost by accident: in grammar school they elected him class poet because he was black, and y’know, we all gots dat rhythm. By high school, though, he did develop an attachment to poetry.
He attended Columbia University in New York in 1921, though he left after a year because of racism. While there, though, he first discovered Harlem. As he wrote in his autobiography The Big Sea:
Harlem was like a great magnet for the Negro intellectual, pulling him from everywhere. Or perhaps the magnet was New York, but once in New York he had to live in Harlem.
After graduating from the historically-black Lincoln University, and traveling abroad, Hughes settled in Harlem. For the final twenty years of his life, he lived at a brownstone at 20 East 127 Street, where he wrote, among other things, his collection Montage of a Dream Deferred. Its poems captured a 24-hour period in Harlem.
And here are five other places in Harlem associated with Hughes and the Renaissance:
1. 409 Edgecombe Avenue
This address was once Harlem’s tallest apartment building, and its most exclusive. W. E. B. Dubois and Thurgood Marshall were among those who lived there.
It also saw lots of parties. Hughes said in The Big Sea:
In those days, 409 Edgecombe… was quite a party center. The Walter Whites and the Aaron Douglases, among others, lived and entertained there…. At the Aaron Douglases’, although he was a painter, more young writers were found there than painters. Usually everybody would chip in and go dutch on the refreshments, calling down to the nearest bootlegger for a bottle of whatever it was that was drunk in those days.
2. West 138 Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues
“Strivers’ Row” is the common name for the St. Nicholas Historic District. Besides being an architectural gem, it wasn’t sold to blacks until 1919-20, and when they were, many black notables lived there, including Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and W. C. Handy.
3. New York Public Library, 104 West 136 Street
The library at this location is named for Countee Cullen, a poet and contemporary of Hughes. In 1925 they both appeared in an anthology of fiction and non-fiction, The New Negro, which redefined the black experience and expressed the growing desire for social change. They also appeared in the short-lived 1926 magazine Fire!!
At this site was the apartment of A’lelia Walker Robinson, daughter of cosmetics manufacturer and self-made millionaire Madam C. J. Walker. The younger woman ran the east coast operations of her mother’s business and threw lavish parties. In The Big Sea, Hughes said Walker sent out more invitations for guests than her apartment could hold.
4. Harlem YMCA, 180 West 135 Street
Hughes stayed here in the twenties after traveling. Next door was a popular basement restaurant. Paul Robeson frequented it, as did many writers.
5. New York Public Library, 103 West 135 Street
Since 1925, The Schomberg Center for Black Culture has housed a collection of over eleven million items which preserve African and African-American culture. It’s named for a prominent scholar and bibliophile.
On the floor of its lobby contains an art installation by Houston Conwill, “Rivers,” inspired by Hughes’s 1921 poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” published when he was only nineteen. Seventy years later, his ashes were buried beneath the circular art piece in a ceremony.
A line from the poem is depicted within it: “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”
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Have you visited any of these locations? Leave a comment and let me know!
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