Page 6
The Behrend Beacon
February marks 100th anniversaiy of the birth
of Langston Hughes
by Vaughn Watson
The Providence Journal
Langston Hughes chronicled the celebrations and setbacks
of being black and living in America.
As a poet, essayist and novelist, his writing reflected injus
tice, disappointment, loneliness and plain old bad luck. But
he didn't just highlight the stormy spots. Hughes was a biog
rapher of black America, writing of black Americans going
about their everydays: finding a job, falling in love.
“He created families on paper,” says Ramona Bass, a Provi
dence, R. 1., storyteller who is co-administrator of the Hughes
estate.
February is the 100th anniversary of the birth of
this literary father figure. And this month, his legacy
is being celebrated around the nation.
Hughes was bom Feb. 1, 1902 in Joplin, Mo.
He published his first book of poetry - “The Weary
Blues” - in 1926.
His writing life was framed by an interest in black
art, writing and performance in the 19205, and a
suige of civil protest for equality - not just appre
ciation - in the 19605.
With a soothsayer’s replication of reality, he cre
ated full worlds. In the Simple series of humorous
books about the outspoken character Jesse B.
Semple, a homespun philosopher from Harlem,
“Hughes was Black America,” says Ray Rickman,
a book collector and Rhode Island's deputy secre
tary of state.
“He had a touch of class, dignity. He understood
common people,” Rickman says. “The Simple se
ries gives us the essence of the wholesome
everyman. He hung out in a bar talking to people.
That Was Hughes guiding America.
“I’ve never seen ‘The Simpsons’ in my life but
know what it’s about. Hughes was like that. Ev
eryone knew Mr. Hughes - that was his name. Ev
ery black person in the world knew who Langston
Hughes was - and cared.”
Somebody upstairs in Simple's house had the
combination turned up loud with an old Dizzy
Gillespie record spinning like mad filling the Sab
bath with Bop as I passed.
“Set down here on the stoop with me and listen
to the music,” said Simple.
“I’ve heard your landlady doesn’t like tenants
sitting on her stoop,” I said.
‘ “Pay Writ) twhid,” said Simple. “Oo\-ya-koo,”
he sang. ?‘Hey Ba-'Ki-Re-BOpT B'e-BopT Mop?’
“All that nonsense singing reminds me of Cab
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The U.S. Postal Service has recognized die Langston
Hughes centennial by issuing a commemorative postage
stamp. Part of the Black Heritage series, the 34-cenf stamp
features Hughes in a 1946 photograph taken by Henri
Cartier-Bresson.
“It’s special, because stamps elevate people,” says Ray
Rickman, a book collector and Rhode Island’s deputy sec
retary of state. “People will pick up the stamp and say,
‘Who is he?’ Millions of people will think of Hughes on
his 100th birthday.”
Ramona Bass, whose husband, George Houston Bass,
was literary executor of Hughes's estate until Bass's death
in 1990, says that when she sees Hughes in the photo on
the stamp, “I can hear him laughing.”
“As George noted, Mr. Hughes was widely known for
his laughter, which irked George because he would say,
‘This is not a laughing matter.’
. , realized Mr. Hughes sombtifttelS ltiugfred tb ! keep’
from crying. It was part of bis shield to the world.”
Celica—
Calloway back in the old scat days,” I said, “around 1930
when he was chanting, ‘Hi-de-hie-de-ho! Hee-de-hee-de
hee!”’
“Not at all,” said Simple, “absolutely not at all.”
“Re-Bop certainly sounds like scat to me,” I insisted.
“No,” said Simple, “Daddy-o, you are wrong. Besides, it
was not Re-Bop. It is Be-Bop.”
“What’s the difference," I asked, “between Re and Be?”
“A lot,” said Simple. “Re-Bop was an imitation like most
of the white boys play. Be-Bop is the real thing like the col
ored boys play.”
“You bring race into everything,” I said, “even music.”
New stamp
sends message
about Hughes
by Vaughn Watson
The Providence Journal
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Friday, Febuary 8, 2002
“It is in everything,” said Simple.
When Hughes began to write poetry in the 1930 s it “has
appeal because of a certain kind of dignity, and relevance, and
it has a positive story that people respond to,” said Arnold
Rampersad, Hughes’s biographer and the other co-executor
of his estate.
Hughes’s family had moved around the Midwest and even
to Mexico City in his youth. In 1922, he withdrew from an
engineering course at Columbia University and began travel
ing the world. Ultimately he spent a great deal of time in New
York City, and became a key figure in the current of writing,
art and music known by black artists known as the “Harlem
Renaissance.”
In Hughes’s writing, race is not ducked, talked
around, elbowed back or stared past
“He was talking about the beauty of black skin long
before any other poet was talking explicitly that way,”
said Rampersad. “He delighted in celebrating the masses
of African Americans.”
Hughes also held an interest in jazz, and in the blues,
which articulates everyday life as Hughes did.
Hughes’s interest in the blues “was as a source of
sorrow, but also a source of joy,” says Rampersad. The
blues "usually tells sad things but there are songs that
make people laugh. He was interested in capturing a sense
of laughter as well as pain.
“Hughes really broke ground when he wrote about
the blues, or tried to write blues poetry,” Rampersad says.
“That brought him under severe attack from all kinds
of people. He was going against the grain, letting people
know that black music was an important cultural achieve
ment”
The message of the 1951 poem “Dream Deferred,”
Hughes’s best-known work, laments life in another way,
in how it squelches optimism.
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up -
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore -
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over -
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
To a reader, the rest of Hughes’s work suggests an an
swer that the ultimate response to struggle is surviving
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Guy Reschenthaler, Wire Service Editor
A cool cat survives
three-week sea saga
NEW YORK - Curiosity killed a cat - al
most.
The latest twist on this age-old proverb
happened last week at Berth 80 Maher Ter
minal on the waterfront in Newark, N.J.
It was there early Jan. 29 that a black cat
was discovered - nearly frozen to death - in
a huge refrigerated wine cargo container
that had been shipped across the Atlantic
from a vineyard in Italy's Tuscany region.
Surprised Marchesi Antinori Wines work
ers, who found the frost-covered feline
when they opened the 1,200-case shipment,
feared the worst. The 2-year-old, green
eyed male didn't move, didn’t react to a
flashlight and couldn't even be coaxed by a
bowl of milk.
"Everyone thought he was dead," said
Francine Bryan Brown, a spokeswoman for
the wine importer.
An animal rescue unit was called, and the
cat - which was lucky despite the color of
its coat - was ultimately revived. He's been
recovering at Newark's Associated Humane
Societies.
The workers who found him dubbed him
Peppoli, for the brand of chianti that was in
the container.
They said the cat may have been poking
around in the container just before he was
locked inside and the cargo ship set sail on
the three-week Italy-to-New Jersey voyage.
Peppoli survived, they believe, on the con
densation that can gather along the edge of
the 40-foot-long container, which is kept at
55 degrees while at sea.
Wine company workers were trying to dis
cover whether Peppoli - who was not wear
ing a collar - has an owner who misses him
in Italy. If not, they said, they'll keep him.
Cathy, 40, a wine warehouse dispatcher
who didn't want her last name used, said,
"This poor guy came over an ocean, sat in
there for three weeks without food and wa
ter. I refuse to believe he came to America"
to be left in a shelter.
Questions?
by Melissa Grace
New York Daily News