And He Didn't Believe

Lumumba was black

And he didn't trust

The whores all powdered

With uranium dust.

Lumumba was black

And he didn't believe

The lies thieves shook

Through their "freedom" sieve.

Lumuba was black.

His blood was red-

And for being a man

They killed him dead.

They buried Lumumba

In an unmarked grave.

But he needs no marker-

For air is his grave.

Sun is his grave,

Moon is, stars are,

Space is his grave.

My heart's his grave

And it's marked there.

Tomorrow will mark

It everywhere.

~Langston Hughes, (1961)

How Many Bullets Does It Take

Death In Yorkville

(Jamas Powell, Summer, 1964)

How many bullets does it take

To kill a fifteen-year-old kid?

How many bullets does it take

To kill me?

How many centuries does it take

To bind my mind-chain my feet-

Rope my neck-lynch me-

Unfree?

From the slave chain to the lynch rope

To the bullets of Yorkville,

Jamestown, 1619 to 1963:

Emancipation Centennial-

100 years NOT free.

Civil War Centennnial: 1965.

How many Centennials does it take

To kill me,

Still alive?

When the long hot summers come

Death ain't

No jive.

~Langston Hughes, The Panther and the Lash

Warm Manure

Un-American Investigators

The committee's fat,

Smug, almost secure

Co-religionists

Shiver with delight

In warm manure

As those investigated-

Too brave to name a name-

Have pseudonyms revealed

In Gentile game

  Of who,

  Born Jew,

  Is who?

Is not your name lipshitz?

  Yes.

Did you not change it

For subversive purposes?

  No.

For nefarious gain?

  Not so.

Are you sure?

The committee shivers

With delight in

Its warm manure.

~Langston Hughes, The Panther and the Lash

- - - - - - - - -

" 'Your honery'," Simple elsewhere had threatened to testify, if called long as I have been black, I been an American.  Also I was a democrat-but I didn't know Roosevelt was going to die.'  Then I would ask them, 'How come you don't have any Negroes on your Un-American Committee?'  And old Chairman Georgia would say, 'Because that is un-American'."

~Langston Hughes, (Jesse B Simple), Arnold Rampersad, The Life Of Langston Hughes Vol. II,  p217

Purge

Who can purge my heart

    Of the song

    And the sadness?

Who can purge my heart

    But the song

    Of the sadness?

What can purge my heart

    Of the sadness

    Of the song?

Do not speak of sorrow

With dust in her hair,

Or bits of dust in eyes

A chance wind blows there.

The sorrow that I speak of is dusted with despair.

Voice of muted trumpet.

Cold brass in warm air.

Bitter television blurred

By song that shimmers-

   Where?

Langston Hughes, Song for Billy Holiday

Go Slow

Go Slow, they say-
While the bite
Of the dog is fast.
Go slow, I hear-
While they tell me
You can't eat here!
You can't live here!
You can't work here!
Don't demonstrate!  Wait
While they lock the gate. . . .
~Langston Hughes, "Go Slow," c1960

Still Here

Still Here

I've been scarred and battered.

My hopes the wind done scattered.

Snow has friz me, sun has baked me.

     Looks like between 'em

     They done tried to make me

Stop laughing, stop loving, stop living-

     But I don't care!

     I'm still here!

~Langston Hughes

The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

  "Let the blare of Negro Jazz bands and the bellowing voice of Bessie Smith singing Blues penetrate the closed ears of the colored near-intellectuals until they listen and perhaps understand.  Let Paul Robeson singing "Water Boy" and Rudolph Fisher writing about the streets of Harlem, and Jean Toomer holding the heart of Georgia in his hands, and Aaron Douglas drawing strange black fantasies cause the smug Negro middle class to turn from their white, respectable, ordinary books and papers to catch a glimmer of their own beauty.  We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame.  If white people are pleased we are glad.  If they are not, it doesn't matter.  We know we are beautiful.  And ugly too.  The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs.  If colored people are pleased we are glad.  If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either.  We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves."

~Langston Hughes, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

Justice ness

"...blind goddess to which we black are wise, / Her bandage hides two festering sores / That once, perhaps, were eyes"
~Langston Hughes, from Justice