this festival is a a nonprofit that is funded exclusively through donations. one of the ways to help us through this kind of programming is through the friends of fall for the book. to learn more please visit that website again. we ask that you please remember to silence your cell phone and thank you in advance of filling out a survey which will help fall for the book improve the festival in the future. thank you to our main sponsor, african and african-american studies. so we are pleased to have fear marylouise patterson and jeffrey stewart, two writers who examine key figures of the harlem renaissance, langston hughes and alan locke, respectively. in "letters from langston" dr. patterson explores relationship that her family but particularly her mother had with langston hughes, and in "the new negro: the life of alain locke," jeffrey stewart chronicles the education and career of the central figure in the harlem renaissance. it's important say something about the subjects that they write about. they celebrate, vote up authorities that other celebrate geniuses in a society said you did not belong. and their great gift to many through the art is to say this is how we do belong. so without further ado marylouise patterson, thank you here. [applause] >> thank you, everyone. thank you, george mason university. thank you, professor benedict carton. thank you for inviting me. i couldn't agree that this is, these two people, langston hughes and alan locke, whatever important people in american history. certainly in american literacy. i would like to introduce you to my parents who, and to the parents of my co-author a new langston hughes for over 40 years and who corresponded with him for over 40 years, and this is an introduction for you to houthis to sets of parents, before people actually were. my parents, william and louise patterson, and my co-author evelyn crawford, her parents. their uniqueness perhaps was that they were african-american communists. they were very close friends of langston, as i said, for most of their lives. and for the first half of the 20th century. so i'd like to show you this 17 minute video so that you would get some sense of who they were. the letters, the correspondence is in a book that we co-edited. it's entitled "letters from langston: from the harlem renaissance to the red scare and beyond." i also want to say that the voice you're going here is the voice of paul robeson, and our pictures in there that don't have names, labels on them, but if you want to know who the people are in the pictures, you can ask me afterwards. [inaudible] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> we actually new langston hughes from the very beginnings of our lives. on the occasion of our birth, he wrote to each of us to welcome us into the world. he did this because of his close ties to our two sets of parents, louise thompson and william paterson, and evelyn and matt crawford. when you learn of my arrival he wrote me a card from paris. it said, to nady lou from lang. ps, glad you're here. and on a visit to california the following year, he saw me take my first steps. >> when i came along a few years later he sent me this handwritten first draft of this poem. i found the soldiers cat lying in the snow. it has a red star on it. whose is it? do you know? he also enclosed a letter. dear marylouise, this is for your first collection of original manuscripts. by the time you're old enough to read my world will be over and by the time your big girl i hope a red star would be shining everywhere and that you will be here a long time to enjoy all of its blessings. so be a nice baby and take your card liver oil and grow coal of strong. with love from langston. the story of the friendship between langston hughes, the crawfords and the pattersons begin with my mother louise thompson who would later become louise thompson patterson here louise with the first among our four parents to have a close personal friendship with langston and it was she who brought her childhood friends matt crawford and evelyn grace crawford into his life. louise thompson and my mother evelyn grace hit him in the genes in a game best friends in the early 1920s when louise was a student at the university of california and my mother worked as the sonographer in san francisco. my father had migrated with his family to california from alabama when he was a boy and attended high school with louise in oakland. >> in the fall of 1927, louise was a young teacher at hanson institute in virginia. she and langston met on the hampton campus while he was there for speaking engagement. louise left hampton soon after his appearance there and moved to harlem. she had witnessed separate student strike against the patronizingly racist white administration, and felt she could no longer be part of the school. once in harlem she became a a t of the circle of artists and intellectuals whose most prominent figure was langston hughes. earlier that year my mother went to new york on vacation. during that brief trip she met my father, san francisco born william lorenzo patterson, known as pat she was friend. pat and langston had been earlier to the mutual friend paul robeson during the heyday. pat had settled in new york in 1920 and was well known in the committee as one of heartlands is prominent attorneys and dedicated political activists. he would later become a national leader of the american communist party. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> in the summer of 1928 nettie great vacation in harlem with a friend louise who introduced her to langston hughes and his circle of friends, including artist erin douglas and his wife. langston and nettie hit it off immediately. after a few weeks of the fast harlem life, she would return home to the bay area and her sweetheart, matt crawford, whom she married the following year. louise in her early days in new york worked for a time as secretary to langston and novelist of folklore. she was hired by the wealthy white patron, mrs. charlotte mason if the relationship with mrs. mason came to a dramatic halt when the park avenue matron saw that she could no longer control langston or louise. she abruptly dismissed and humiliated them both. >> one night langston comes to my house. he had been down at -- [inaudible] >> she was a very, very wealthy woman who had been a patron of the arts all of her life. her particular interest were in what she called primitive people. she did not wanting to write poems or audios of social protests. she wanted him to remain primitive as she said. she had to control you. when she couldn't control you should be out of her life. >> he was heartbroken and it been grateful to have somebody from time he didn't have to worry about -- [inaudible] he was going to college. he had me to work for him. ♪ >> she made it very hard for langston for a long time. >> in march of 1932 langston was on a speaking tour when you wrote matt crawford for the first time from oklahoma. dear mr. crawford, thank you for your letter. i'd be happy to appear under the auspices you mentioned in oakland and berkeley. i shall should be in californin april. i hope we shall meet. tell nettie i'm anxious to see her. sincerely, langston hughes. by may of that year my father and langston had become fast friends. later that month langston sent matt a telegram about an exciting prospect, a trip to moscow that louise had been organizing from new york. >> dear matt, here is a copy of your wire from louise. moscow wired all players must arrive moscow by july 1. there he misses her you new york ready to sail by june 15. have a good group. consult map. wire immediately. louise. so if you are going you have to get a passport at once. airmail louise your decision. i hope you can go, langston. the group of young black professionals, intellectuals anarchists had been invited to moscow to make a film entitled black and white about the state of race relations in the united states. matt and langston were roommates during their stay in the soviet union. they are in heavy atmosphere of the new socialism, they forged their friendship and commitment to radical political struggle. william paterson had gone to the soviet union earlier. by 1920 he was seriously studying radical political philosophy and travel to moscow to continue to study socialism. >> i went to make a movie picture. the picture was about the race relations in the united states and the labor struggles here. >> we got there and we found they had no idea what black folks were like in this country. langston tried to work on the script. >> i said, well, i don't believe we can make a picture from this. anybody would believe anywhere else in the world. eventually the film was canceled. ♪ >> we left langston. >> i was able to travel all over the soviet union, and i particularly wanted to see the asiatic portion because there are colored people like myself, so wanted to go and see how they lived. ♪ >> matt, louise and langston were profoundly affected and uplifted by the trip into soviet central asia. on the return to the states they would both become active in the fight to free the ninth scottsboro boys of alabama. at this time that also join the communist party, convinced that the only hope for black americans was a fundamental change in an oppressive political, , economic, and socil order. langston remained in the soviet union until the spring of 1933. >> back in the states langston throws itself into the scottsboro boys case, investment was building to free young men. langston wrote and spoke on their behalf and went to visit them at the scottsboro alabama prison. later in the the 1930s he would travel as a journalist for the baltimore afro-americans to cover the spanish civil war. louise had also going to spain to help with relief work. >> spain at that time was a focal point for anyone who had any social conscience, especially writers who came from all over the world. [inaudible] when langston came back in spain in 1938, he said -- [inaudible] >> together 1938, langston the mother wanted the heart and 60s you to get successful production that you was his play, don't you want to be free. >> throughout the 1930s and 40s, langston is been a great of time in carmel california at the home of his wealthy friend. he would often come up to berkeley to go to the barbershop and visit with my family. he was playful and lighthearted some of the time but it also confide in my parents and saw a sense of family among us. he also would seek their advice on serious personal and political matters. he called this meeting clarification. in 1941 he was attacked by the evangelist for an early poem he written called goodbye, christ took occasion he was broke borrowed small amounts of money, paying them back probably when he received his next check from a speaking engagement or a publishing project. in the early 1950s langston was called to testify about his political views before the infamous senator mccarthy. shortly after this ordeal in washington, d.c., he sent our parents a summary of his testimony with a touching note explaining that come with the exception of paul robison, yet not been forced to name names. >> in june of 1957 langston invited my parents in the to see his play, simply heavenly, on broadway. my father was very disturbed by the play and vote langston in part, dear langston, louise, we saw simply heavenly tuesday night. thanks for the tickets, and may i hear now very belatedly, thank you for sending us, i i wonderf the one and several other books. it is difficult to define my reaction to simply heavenly. i cannot say that i liked it. it did not appeal to me. simply heavenly does not say what greatly needs to be set at this moment, at least not to me. so simple is the eternally recurring primitive negro, so childishly simple and so simply childish. that time and place called for something else. then negro can today play a moral role in american life. thanks again. one must do more than get one's fingers into progressive life. sincerely, pat. langston answered the next day. in spite of the harsh criticism, he replied without anger or surprise. dear pat, i was certainly sorry i was at the theater tonight you all came come as a would of loved to say hello to you. your letter is greatly appreciated, and your views valid in the number of ways. i am sure when it comes to place it is a a miracle to end up wih anything at all one wishes left in the play. after 20-third of the people have had a hand in the creation, from the producers and directors to actress. so all i can say is i did the best i could under the circumstance. that it gets your serious consideration and you write me thoughtful letter is only something to be grateful for. best ever, and hope to see you and the family soon as work pressures let up. sincerely, langston. this correspondence could've caused a break in the friendship between these two men, but instead their bonds of solidarity endured frank criticism and adamantly held opinions. >> in the 1950s and 60s, langston visit were less frequent but he kept up with what we're doing and thinking. marylouise was studying in moscow and i was in graduate school in new york when news of her marriage to a fellow student from university was announced. i called langston tell but the news and you so happy to receive her wedding picture. in the summer of 1966 on his way back to the states senate cow, langston past-due pairs i was living. -- senegal -- the four of us went out to dinner at a low restaurant. langston tease me that evening, telling me i had no business speaking french better than he did. it was a joyous reunion, and after saying our goodbyes on a street corner facing notre dame cathedral, we watched dear langston watch up boulevard in search of the next mornings new york herald tribune. it was the last time i would see him, for the following year he was gone. so langston, as we knew him, was someone who, along with our parents, dedicate his life to the cause of justice for black americans and other oppressed people around the world. he was our uncle and our friend. and the writings and the books he suggested we read helped us to understand the world and our rightful place in it. >> i, too, seeing america. i am the darker brother. i laugh and eat well and grow strong. tomorrow i will be at the table when company comes. nobody will dare say to me, eat in the kitchen then. besides, they will see how beautiful we are and be ashamed. i, two, an american. ♪ ♪ ♪ [applause] >> so now he's met my parents, william and the wiese patterson, my parents, evelyn and matt crawford, and had a glimpse of their 40 plus your friendship with langston. if you enjoyed the video, you'll love our book. "letters from langston: from th e red scare and beyond" co-authored by me and evelyn louise crawford, better known as nettie. my mother louise was a last survivor of the aforementioned quintet, and when she departed in 1999, nettie and i were left with a trove of letters from langston, but we didn't know it are the langston had kept any of the letters our parents must have written him. so in 2002 we went to the library at yale university to the james weldon johnson collection where langston said papers reside to see what, if anything, langston had kept. lo and behold he kept just about everything, including letters we had written to him that we long ago forgotten about. we sat there in silence overwhelmed i what we found and slowly realized that this for your correspondence was a window into some of the most important sociopolitical events of the 20th century. many of which were little-known yet nonetheless real historical significance. additionally, this correspondence displayed black radical intellectual brilliance and activism. they are choosing to make a commitment to progressive struggle that they knew would leave them all financially strapped. lastly, it eliminated a profound, a real friendship. we realized we had to share this discovery. i couldn't just remain our family treasure. we had to write a book. we had to write it for uncle langston, for we knew that one who never stop, because we knew that he had never stop believing that workers deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labor, or in biblical terms, that the meek deserve to inherit the earth they killed. he never stipulated in the imperative to struggle for true democracy in america, the america that never was but could be, as he so poignantly wrote in his poem, let america be america again. i'd like to make three points about langston from the vantage point of being one of his nieces. the first, there was the langston hughes politically independent outside of june at the national negro congress, the only groups he joined that i recall where writers groups. most of those were politically progressive. he was also artistically independent, holding a normal nine to five job only twice in his right life and then only for a few months. one was at atlanta university and other was at the lab school in chicago. despite the fact he was a famous screenwriter, playwright, poet heard on the radio and requested speaker for many events, he was penniless most of his writing life. borrowing from friends are thankful for the largest of his patrons and the few awards they came his way. he survived mostly from his speaking engagements which forced him to be on the road for weeks to months at a time, often in a dilapidated car, facing the grueling schedule that pushed him to a newtown every one to two days. entering the human nation of jim crow accommodations, unless he landed somewhere here friends, or else he slept in his car. this constant travel and the substandard travel conditions meant he was often ill. this, along with chain-smoking, had to have taken a great toll on his life, shortening it to 65 years. it wasn't until the 1960s that he made any real money, having only got to enjoy it for about five to six years, for he died in 1967. there was the langston who kept his radical ideological beliefs to the end of his life. this was proven by the fact to maintain an open friendship with my parents, who were known communist and incidentally, with other open black communist, like ishmael flores in chicago. the terrifying witch hunt panic 1950s where even the mere hint of sympathy towards anyone, group or idea that was considered communist was enough to get one fired, manage, divorce, jailed, or dead by one's own hand. sound familiar? two. donald trump was mentored by roy cohn would been mentored and work for the infamous senator joe mccarthy from the term mccarthyism was going and he was a master of the art of bullying, smear campaigns, line and the use of the new media, tv, which proved perfect first popularizing of his fear mongering theatrics. and lastly, langston love black people. he loved all colored people and oppressed people, but he especially loves black people. in all our complexities and contradictions, our colors, our dance and laughter, our walk in attitude, our sartorial expression, our food and generosity, our schumer and blues, our language and a rhythm, our strength, our unrelenting struggle for freedom, equality, dignity, and the ability to live without fear. he never stop getting his voice to his people for being the voice of his people. he never stop assisting young writers here and in a diaspora to find the voices and to hear the songs and voices of their people. thank you. [applause] >> i just want to say i am honored to share this session with professor jeffrey stewart. >> and i'm honored to be here with you. is this -- this one? i was confused because someone had told me it was the black mic and i thought that was kind of like, you know, a little racial narrative coming in here so i was just trying to make sure that i didn't essential allies the moment. but anyway, i'm so glad to be here back at george mason i taught for many years among my friends and colleagues. and to of course be here back with the finished book that because so much of the time that i was here i couldn't finish it, but at the same time i was so nurtured by the kindred of scholars here who value to me and helped me move along in the past that led to its conclusion. so i really am so pleased to be here at george mason, and my colleagues. i also want to give a shout out though to howard university, and in the process read something. one of the things i think about working on a book for a long time is that you accumulate many debts, but you also accumulate many resources. in other words, you talk into work and interact with so many people, and you don't realize it but at some point during the process something they said to you, something that was done or whatever comes back and it fit in somewhere or it helps sutured together some thoughts or ideas that were kind of hang apart for a long time. .. and so we're working on this and i want to read you something because it struck me when i was working towards the end, it kind of helped pull together what was special about alain locke and what i wanted this book to say. it was the late 80s and never lets all in lebanon politics alex haley's roots in the know that historians were nitpicking it to dad because it was so popular. we all know as historians we hate to see journalists moved into our territory and do a job better than we could. in any case, she said alex haley's roots is a story relating the question for reunion in such a story, defines himself as the sum of his past and present parts. i choose to fulfillment as he reunites with this source is a very old story told of east end wine. a very beautiful story. assures us we belong to continuity and suggest there is order in the university and asserts that our job has defined the andrea reconciled with the and therefore experience the fulfillment that unity achieves. it never gently, however, and this is not the story that afro-american literature has told, nor is it the story told in the oral folklore upon which that literature is in large part else. blair rabbit, the signifying monkey, and john the conqueror, statically, shine come in the anonymous author of the spirituals, the wandering blues singers, none of these mythological or actual carriers of folk tradition look to the past object of their quest. to the contrary, we hear them seeing on my journey now and can't nobody turn me around. neither the folklore nor the literary tradition denied the value of the desirability of reconciliation with the past, yet what they emphasize and what they put to language essential is not the quest for root, but the active shaping rootlessness and it is this rootlessness that i think was a care eristic of alain locke and what he began to find in the rest of white culture as a source of creativity and i think that this one of the things i focused a lot on in the book was the analysis of the great migration. the great migration which brought hundreds of thousands command millions really of african-americans out of the south, and to the north in world war ii and afterward they really created the pittsburgh's other critical mass of blackness. most of the people like charles thompson, anna jay scott called this as social forces, the poll of opportunity created by world war i for employment in wartime industries, the push of jim crow imaging and missiles, but locke didn't see it that way. locke thought as a consciousness change. really the change in the consciousness of the people in the south that led them to see the opportunity coming to see a future that was different from the past that led them to respond to these social condition a new psychology as he calls it, to seize opportunity and to make a new man, a new woman out of it. this idea here of consciousness is very important in alain locke. yes we are pushed by social forces, but at some point we have the choice how we respond to does and what he saw picking up on what he was saying about the level of people as they found in black people that agency, that despite everything going on, people have the ability to pick up their lives and do some doing new, two transforms themselves and make a new out of their situation because it was the agency come in the consciousness, the ability to act on your own and name your own agenda that made for the new. when you think about it, the 19th one is coming to think about the roaring 20s and everything, and that the 1920s was a lot like today. you had a conservative president in the white house, you have the rise of nativism, the national origins act of 1024, basically cut off immigration of almost all nonwhites in the united states come in the ideology of 100% americanism, hyper nationalism and yet in that time, african-americans created the heart of the renaissance. so when we think about now, a lot of negativity, we need to think about the fact that is not really new and what we need to focus on perhaps common at least a locke might say today is to focus on the creative resources you have to do something new and maybe turn off a little bit so much attention to the noise of white supremacy and white racism and other demonizing forces in society and so locke became at the head of something much larger than him. kind of the surfer on the wave and the great migration of working-class and lower middle class people out of the south and also the wave of all this talent we've seen here. langston hughes, paul rolston, anna larsson, jacob lawrence, katherine dunn who are essentially giant in literature, poetry, visual art, folklore, performing arts than they transformed american culture through their creativity and not as an important story i think we should keep in mind even as we struggle with our current situation not so much looking back. obviously having connection, but what about the past is useful for us today. a new sub one is always possible even in the darkest times even today and the art of renaissance was not detached from the social conditions of the people in which that movement was embedded. it was hard for people sick even as artists trouble to exercise their artistic freedom. art and culture could be used to reinvent black and brown communities throughout the united states and the diaz for a with latin america and of course africa. another part of this is very important, which is locke was gay and his gayness was not considered, locke felt alienated from the communities around protest politics, fearing he would be out of our exposed and rather than retreat from racial struggle as some did find a way to use something he loved, art, to revitalize the race and reinvent the sub one in america's culture is the quintessential american artist. indeed, people of color have always been a driver for us in the creative industries in america and yet i think what locke said as they can be essential to the black struggle and not be marginalized for that. a new way of thinking came out of so many gay and a artist at the time. the issue of art added something that may be politics and economic struggles didn't which is locke believed in the power of imagination, and that the other insight of us could be talked in the used as a way to connect to the other outside of bias, so some of this could be connect it to other people and bond with the fact we are all moving not really knowing where we are going in from time to time and crystallize the movement into song, poetry, painting, dance. this book is about the harlem renaissance, but also the obstacles and tragedies of intersection allenby and how we need to complicate our notion of black identity even as we fight for it survival and vindication. and here, i think a unique part of locke's life, he wrote this one assay and what i think he was trying to say they are is part of us moving out, part of us being exposed to the outside of us is important for us understanding what is inside of us that we can't become so barricaded within our culture, so hunkered down that we don't see there being more cosmopolitan, more transnational to become more understanding that a dialogic approach to culture, dialoguing with the outside is important for us becoming who we need to be. so i think locke would worry of daily politics that time continues at kind of danger, you know, that it can become a dungeon, a kind of prison of mana logic instead of dialogic and in the 20th and 21st century are great opportunity with new forms of community and transportation is really to discover the outside in terms of geography and also mentality and that it's true the struggle that is not as they would become something better and is also part of locke struggle in something that he did in the 30s. generally speaking he was not on the side of radical and protests for a variety of reasons. some of them personal, some of them he felt further without dramatizing racism, but in the 1930s he began to become involved with the anti-fascist movements supporting people in the spanish war, particularly very powerful who i ran basically nursing and other medical things. he became part of the national congress he began to be investigated a the fbi. even in the year before his death he was still called him, had been questioned so that there is a cost here and that did not deter him. he was able to reinvent himself and that his greatest triumph was to be able to understand that with which he disagreed with subject today. i want to close with another signature that turn into is very important, but another was mentioned earlier, beauty and reminded me when i was here at george mason, and beauty comes even before plato, continuing the idea that beauty is universal as aristotle put it, and beauty is a virtue, an ideal, that beauty is often sent and denied by minority people, minority communities. indeed, minority people are often described consistently is not beautiful in the discourse of white supremacy. they are sometime arrival, perhaps the best, beauty, its possibility and was, but beauty of human beings who are choked away from it in their lives distorted. the charge to humanity as a challenge to all of us as he rode, who shall write this universal failing? who shall let the world be beautiful? who shall restore to men and women that piece of quiet sleep alain locke took up that challenge in observation and provided one powerful obligation by asserting something quite radical in the 1920s and even today the black people are charged with writing this universal failing of demanding the right to beauty and her own lives, lies distorted and demand that is the right of african-americans to beauty, to speak and write about in carveout realms of beauty unnoticed by most americans because america has for much of its history been unable to see if life is beautiful ground down daily by a label unrewarding as always lacking. locke proposed if we could see the intrinsic beauty of, we might be able to get out of that i'm quiet sleep perhaps not only discover a new sub one among us but perhaps a new american. [applause] [inaudible] >> was there any on her action between the two that know each other? how did they react to each other? >> langston hughes considered the poet laureate and was probably the first poet of the harlem renaissance to really create a new forum. he was able to use the first free verse and the blues song to create blues poetry, which was very original and locke is very supportive of him. he was also the person who caught him the relationship, but tensions emerged between the two of them because locke felt in counter to ms. patterson's analysis that langston hughes failed to live up to the expectations he had. after the whole relationship of patronage disintegrated, and they were really no longer friends. so there's a lot of rivalry and tension in these relationships as well as this hothouse creativity. >> locke is also out of charlotte, mason, the one who introduced my mother to mrs. mason. he was older. he was born around 1885 and langston was born in 1902. he was considerably older. he maintained that relationship, maintain out with mrs. mason and beyond when the leaves and langston were no longer with her. >> a big part of my book is to talk about the paths of white patronage that existed at times because on one hand one of the things that there was more interracial than they the black arts movement, and that there is tremendous tension and power about mrs. mason's obsession with power, which i think is also sort of related to the fact she was an incredibly talented powerful white women he had to have it right there. she had a lot of frustrations, the locke in addition to everything else, his own mother was important to him than when she passed away, he sought out other mother figures to sustain him. and so while he was disappointed with this situation that occurred when it blew up, his own need for nurture lead him to stay with this person who he had to know was haley, you know, problematic person to be involved in the black movement, but his own personal needs were overwhelming. >> harlem was a very small community, so they actually all, everyone involved at the time in the cultural life of harlem, and they all each other, all of them. the circles overlapped, whether they were political circles, cultural circles, everybody knew everybody else. >> in the film and i think it was your mother. i got a little confused sometimes the left hand for to come to harlem. could you say more about the circumstances that caused her to leave virginia and go up to harlem? >> at the time there were very few african-american professors. often they did not have college degrees there is a student strike the student strike the plantation condition that young women had to wear skirts of a certain length. the major ends, the way professors would actually take a tape measure and measure the difference distance between their hands to the grounds to make sure they meant the description of how long their skirts needed to be, that they would keep inside the keyholes to make sure men and women were not fraternize and peered when the south african colonel was visiting the united states to see what the new education of african-americans look like upon which they sort of pattern their educational program, he went to happen and they forced the students -- i'm sort of grappling for words, but the student strike and the students ordinarily, professors, the way professors that is in the black professors into that lane only sit together on the hampton campus. they couldn't fraternize the black-and-white professors couldn't fraternize in town, so the students were forced, were expected to come in march into the dining room and they would sing to the way professors in silence. they did not seem and they did not serve then they went on strike and the student leaders were expelled from the university and my mother wrote a letter who is having a crisis magazine at the time. she wrote him a letter about the strike and he published that letter. she didn't expect him to, but he did and when her contract is up at the end of the year, she just could not return. she talked about the paternalistic attitude towards the students was more than she could take and show off then went to new york. >> i've a question question about the content of the communist thought and ideas and expectations of artists to be artists. often a stereotype that communist systems don't want to greater range and paintings unless it serves the kind of day.the purpose to teach, to keep along an ideological path. this is a stereotype and i would like you to engage with that stereotype in relation to langston hughes and law. >> early on, he bought into that to a certain extent he began to experience the change that occurred in the communist party u.s.a. policy which occurred with the popular front and at the popular front being declared his 1935 shift occurred where the communist party in the 90s dates in particular felt that white racism among the working class is a major problem in the game to enlist locke another is to talk about black culture as a way of working against a problem and so after 35 and 36 was welcoming to summer camps and those sorts of things to talk about the folk music as an expression of kind of working class. there was a shift, not to say the stereotype was true before hand, but certainly a shift being more open to black intellectuals after 1935 and more variety in there. the notion of the mechanistic approach to art is something debated a lot and even someone called the aesthetic dimension, he critiques that saying that the imaginative possibility that can lead to new formations in the future, and the idea the economic base strictly controls the superstructure, he found to be not really true when there were other people critical of that as well. >> i would just like to add the russian revolution of teen 17 called to a lot of cultural people around the world. the freedom to be created and after the revolution, people like isadora duncan on a number of people went to the soviet union expecting and finding the artistic freedom that they have not found or had difficulty in struggling to have, so initially certainly the russian revolution liberated art and creativity and was embraced including the impact of the revolution in the ideology of the workers being able to set the policies and benefit from those of their own labor really inspired artists all over the world. >> i like to ask for you to reflect on yourself as writers and particular kind of very and one, working on family papers and reflect them back historically in terms of having taken a long time for the project spanning a good deal of time, how did that shape you and how did that shape your work and particularly perhaps also how did you approach writing from family papers or going through that? there seems to be an interesting story always about writers. what is yours? >> well, my co-author, i co-author, evelyn luis crawford and i have never written formally anyway prior to taking on this project and it took us almost seven teen years to do this from the 2002 trip to yale university where we found that langston had kept this trove of letters he had kept to the publishing of the book, which was 2016. it was quite a journey. first of all, we had to figure out well, did we think this was a book and quickly came to the agreement it was definitely a book. we then thought we need to clarify that although langston had to do what we called a tactical retreat when he appeared before mccarthy, sort of renouncing his earlier work, which was seen as, you know, progressive, that a young man that won us a young man young man things but now that i'm an older man i've thrown away those urges. but that really wasn't true. this period of mccarthyism mentioned in the film, which were those of you are to that. period was a terrifying. so, we decided it was a book that yes we had to show langston kept these beliefs through his entire life and open friendship with her parents through that mccarthy. was an example of bad, really spoke to thought, prayer to god or at least so we think. the other thing is the letters are wonderful. they are filled with cost of, first drafts of his writing, disappointments, the loss of their mothers. they are beautiful letters, so we felt based on that they needed to see the light of day. and then we had to figure out that you can see we were born sisters. we lived in different parts of the country and we have never collaborated on anything. so we loved each other dearly, but do have a working relationship with somebody is something different entirely. the collaboration requires that you figure out how you are going to work together. and so, that took some time and life kind of intervened as it tends to end we had no money. so while this including best film we did on our own dime. and so, it took a long time. even long. server didn't come together, we would decide tasks and then not do that and come back together and start de novo should we never gave had the support of friends and family members who understood the mission and supported us through it. those who cook meals, to make it possible for you to take a month off and go into somebody's basement and right and try to work it out. and then we had to figure out what the thread was and i didn't know what people were talking about. the threat of the book? what does that even mean? so there were a lot of challenges. i don't know if i would call myself a writer. we edited these letters. we did a lot of research. we wanted to not only introduce her parents to an audience that would know who they were, but also the dvds, play? we researched and wanted to include in the book and felt it was important to include this sort of left out history to put it back into american history and american letters. lastly, i will just say, we had a champion in the canon. professor robin kelly, who without him there would be no book, who championed this book from the very beginning, wrote a wonderful introduction and made it possible for this book to be published. >> well, i love listening to you talk and it always reminds me of things when you talk about the mccarthy era and i hope i am saying her name right, late professor here, josephine pacheco who is one of the nicest people to me when i first came to george mason and she told me about, she lived through the mccarthy. and she was from virginia, white woman and she said they would get in their cars and drive out someplace to talk because they were constantly concerned about being monitored in people having their phones tapped and listening devices. so this was a real period of terror, which is something a lot of people are worried about now that, you know, free speech was dangerous then you could end up losing your job or losing the mortgage on your house or whatever because some overheard word taken out of context. and for me it was astounding when they realized that somebody like locke was hauled into fbi headquarters several times because in some ways i think there was an aspect that he was a closet radical and also he was, people could use that. i think in my case, one of the things that i think was a struggle that i had to acknowledge at a certain point was my education actually didn't prepare me to write the book. in other words, his education, harvard undergraduate, rhodes scholar, authority on greek and roman culture, expatriate to germinate, and another with, the realm of references he produced that i had to find out what they meant was just enormous and at times overwhelming. the other thing i think his writing. the writing itself is a real challenge. i was writing a certain way when i got out of graduate school and was able to do certain things. it's a different kind of writing when you write byte stories. it took me a while. i would produce chapters then i would say that it not it. one of the people who hope me, david levin lewis when i was working on an exhibition and telling him about my struggles and balancing the different aspects of locke then he said i can think of the author's name, but the biography of marcella proves that was done was a model and a women started reading not and started reading models of biographies and not also gave me the idea that if you do a biography, the key is remembrance of things past. even though i wasn't going to chart the whole book about that, that gave me an idea it was a threat. so again for me, it is the people who i dialogue with and who reacted to my frustration with suggestions, you know, that made the difference to continuing to progress because for my case, you had to go over more hurdles until you get to the end. and at times, that was another issue. his voice was so strong that it would overwhelm my voice is so i had to create my own boy suffered from is even though i used a lot of his letters and that was a challenge as well and life intervened as you said. >> i want i think that was jenin orange juice. and then she started smoking. we found our parents as younger people who are finding themselves. and so, that was something new. i think overall, what we realize, both of us loved our parents. they were incredible people. they were in the cauldron is a landlocked and paul rhoads and w. e. b. convoy. the enslavement of black people. they are established on the surreal life four years of the 20th century. they were in the face of that. one generation removed from enslavement, which meant they were raised by people or new people who been slaves. and had a profound affect. i think our appreciation with the road and on the mainstream they actually have an education. these are people with college education. they chose not to do that. a deepening of our love for them out of the ending of what they chose not to do with their life that could have personally -- they chose not to go that way, but to go the other way instead and we could argue whether that was the correct way to go or not, but that is what they did. and so, their courage out of a love for their people and that international to embrace international understanding and the commonality of the struggle of people with the exact same thing. they wanted to come under the yoke of colonialism. colored people all over the world could identify that they did that. so this book really became a labor, and all mosh to not only langston, but to our parent. hopefully that answered your question. any further comments? >> wonderful afternoon so far. they question the team and if it's too complicated we can do this later. >> a little louder? you spoke eloquently in the beginning of african-american not looking back or looking forward in locks work on african art and not a search for root it was dialogue. in terms of his poetic word the question would be a dialogue in mistake of what, where is the dialogue going and i wondered if those of you could address that in dialogue to what. >> right, right. >> you are right. your hall line of thought about locke and industrialism and certainly there is something to that, i'm the art lessons in the congo and the lessons you get it to create art now and so you are aware of the task, but then you are trying to distill it into things you can use now, but also create a better world and the idea and he didn't want to study the history. and create something new and if it's a poem, a colonel or doorway of a better life and that's what it's for one that is filled with art and a better life than is normally with pressure to walking 10 require what is possible and hammered them enough, but particularly with use, what locke have a difficulty with was physically and emotionally bonding with the people and that was a constant struggle he got better out of her time because he was kind of a neurotic person in his class he wanted someone else to open the door. he retouched doorknobs. he had all these cakes and things, which i think came out of the neurosis, where you are just so worried about becoming the stereotype that everything it's got to be perfectly clean, and perfectly ordered, just in case some white person might come over. you know what i mean? it drives you crazy. langston had a much more sense of wanting to be with the people and seeing the people as a source of creativity and i think langston hughes taught that to locke. locke saw him as the educated person. part of the reason he was so attached to art is not only because he's incredibly them, but also because they were a source of knowledge that had not been giving him by his flu shot up ringing and that was the path to liberation for him. >> i'm not sure that i have anything to add to what has been so eloquently gestated, but i think that langston also is on a mission in terms of assisting young writers. it was a picture in the video of him with gwendolyn brook. he assisted young writers all over the world in a number of those young writers in africa and i think he realized their voices were left out. they were being published and no one knew who they were so going to africa was important in terms of searching out those voices and trying to give them a platform to a greater audience outside of africa. he went as you know to funds that, the first, he took polly marshall with him and then forgetting, the second grader who went with him, so he was bringing young african-american writers also to meet their counterparts in africa appeared so he realized the importance of the connection of writers all over the world that there was an exchange that needed to take place in the champions that. >> thank you. thank you very much. tran tan >> it is now senior year. and the president of the student council, my all-white high school. because we should debut at with cliff huxtable being a doctor in the middle daughter, denise looking kind of like me, finally a fictional family on the tv screen that resembled mine. i was glued to it every thursday evening reading it for guidance for how to be someone like me. i turned 17 on november a few weeks after the presidential election are reelected ronald reagan. my best friend diana made me a huge birthday lock% of its words and images cut from the pages of tiger b-17 in other teen magazines. she had woken up extra early to get to school on time to tape it to my locker before my arrival. we did this kind of thing for each other. her birthday was early in november and i've done it to her locker two weeks before. i had enough towards my locker located in their central hallway, conveniently close to everything. even about the ban of student voices and slamming lockers i could hear my heels clicking on the shiny senate floor. i can already see the birthday lock or sign in front of me with its five sheets of white paper taped one to the next to the next in a sort of vertical column with shimmering silver ribbons taped to the top and sides by rolling out into the hall. i felt a surge of anticipation of the attention i would get by. a friend shouted happy birthday and i made my way down the hallway and i shouted thanks. when i got to my locker after then admired diana's creativity, reading from top to bottom all the bits of language and images gioconda set trouble to cut out and glue on there for me. i open the locker, put my backpack inside, put out the books i needed for my first two classes and i turned and smiled at someone else singing happy birthday, claims the locker door shut and twisted the combination lock a few times. i strolled down the main corridor towards my first class feeling like i owned the place. some unknown minutes later, someone with a thick black marker and wrote niger on my birthday sign, it even spelled incorrectly i knew what they meant. immediately my mouth went dry. i found a black marker and crossed out each iteration of the word. it days and i took this fine home in the privacy of my better i pulled my senior scrapbook from the bookshelf above my desk and open it to the first blank page. i pay for my birthday lock with an accordion style to be completely employed to resemble what it looked like hanging on the locker. before posting the scrapbook i took a pair of scissors and like a surgeon excising tumors removed the three iterations of the shameful word then threw them in the trash. to close the scrapbook and returned it to the shelf containing the recorded history of my childhood. over the christmas holiday i typed my college applications are brand-new apple computer to my parents were among the first to buy it in march 1985 the first internet domain name symbolic.com was registered. in april i expected an offered admission pretty classmate had applied to stanford had not gotten in. we were precalculus together, the highest honor high school hall during the seventh and final. of the day. "after the bell" rang signaling the end of class they walked in and began talking to me in a playful tone. so, you got into stanford. i looked up at my friend and silently asked, why is your dad here? then i replied, yes. what were your s.a.t. scores? i responded. do you think it's very got into stanford over harris when his scores were higher than not? paris was not president of the student body. our grades were roughly the same, but i had stolen his spot at stanford with my blackness. .. welcome to the national constitution center and thank you for coming to today's program. my name is lana ulrich, , and we're about to treat into an exciting program but before introduce i guess i want to give a quick plug for some of her upcoming programs.

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