Black History Month Spotlight -- Langston Hughes

Via Bernhard

Langston Hughes:

Community Activist & Poet

Before two State legislatures, black communist Manning Johnson identified black poet and activist Langston Hughes as a communist; and that he [Johnson] had been assigned the job of bringing the NAACP into the communist orbit. Johnson further testified to the effect that the NAACP “was a vehicle of the communist party designed to overthrow the government of the United States.” Throughout his career, Hughes was vocally and demonstrably supportive of communist ideology and regimes.

It is said that Hughes became interested in socialism in his youth, with a belief that all property should be divided equally among society---this led him to join the communist party [CPUSA]. He wrote articles for WEB DuBois's "Crisis" magazine as well as "The New Masses," the propaganda arm of the CPUSA, joined the Marxist "John Reed Club" and became director of the pro-communist "Suitcase Theatre" with which communist Whitaker Chambers was also involved. Hughes listed among his early influences James Weldon Johnson who served on the board of the Garland Fund, a philanthropic group which funded various radical and communist movements in the 1920's and 1930's.

In 1932, he went to the Soviet Union as part of a writers project and came away with admiration for Soviet society and saw it as a symbol of hope---in 1934 he wrote the poem "One More "S" In The USA" for the CPUSA publications. Although he only spent a year in the Soviet Union, his 1956 memoir "I Wonder As I Wander" chronicled his visit and made it clear that like so many superficially-educated Americans, Hughes allowed himself to be exploited by the Soviets and became another of Lenin's literary "useful idiots." Hughes was then inducted into the International Union of Revolutionary Writers and wrote passionate odes to communism.

Hughes served as president of the "League of Struggle For Negro Rights," and under his guidance, this organization published the “Harlem Liberator” which fomented race hatred and encouraged black Americans to believe that communism is their only friend, and that they must unite with other communists against the common enemy. The leadership roster of the LSNR was a Who's Who of black American communists, including Benjamin J. Davis, Jr. and James W. Ford, the latter a three-time vice presidential candidate in the 1930's on the CPUSA ticket. Also on the roster were CPUSA presidential candidates Earl Browder and William Z. Foster. Hughes referred to Moscow as "the world's new center."

Hughes was summoned to testify at the 1953 McCarthy hearings but was not able to convince the committee that his previous involvement with communist activities and organizations was

not genuine, and that he really believed in a republican form of government. Eric J. Sundquist recorded in Commentary magazine that "although he was a cooperative witness, his tightrope act left the distinct impression of a man who wished neither to defend nor renounce his former beliefs but simply to set them aside, like an abandoned literary style." In 1960, Hughes received the NAACP’s “Spingarn Medal," its highest award, which was presented to other known black communists like WEB DuBois, A. Phillip Randolph, Paul Robeson and Walter White Hughes authored “The Story of the NAACP” in 1962 that tried unsuccessfully to discredit communist infiltration of the NAACP.

Sources:

The Red Network, Elizabeth Dillings, 1934

American Communism in Crisis, Joseph Starobin, University of California Press, 1972

Communist Party of the US, Fraser Ottanelli, Simon & Shuster, 1987