Langston Hughes and Catalog 163

This catalog contains over fifty items relating to Langston Hughes. About half once belonged to Amy Spingarn, a white woman of wealth and privilege who befriended Hughes and gave him a little financial help when he needed it.

Hughes never got rich. He never won the Nobel Prize for Literature. His life was devoted to writing faithfully about the lives and struggles of his much-loved fellow African Americans. Their beauty, despair, anger, hope, faith, creativity, humor, love, and occasional triumph inhabit almost every syllable of his prose and poetry.

This catalog aspires to be a bit like that and offer material on all aspects of African American life. For bigotry, we've got lynching postcards, Senator Tillman and other unreconstructed white thinkers. Slave narratives and a copy of "Our Nig" provide a good dose of dealing with injustice. Booker T. Washington and other bootstrappers, some militant and some not, offer tales of perseverence to make Sisyphus blush. Preachers, bishops and just plain believers offer a large dose of faith and hope. Ira Aldridge and a host other actors, writers, musicians and artists offer creativity. If you want triumph, we've got tales of success in many fields, including a 1928 account by the fastest bicycle rider in the world.

We don't have anything in this catalog by President Obama. Instead, Catalog 163 is a celebration of those who came before and through their courage, endurance and achievements made it possible for an African American to occupy the Oval Office.

Phil & Sharon McBlain