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| 1749 S.St. NW c. Denise Low |
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| Langston Hughes residence 1924-6 |
Langston Hughes lived in Washington, D.C.
1924-26. He lived briefly at the YMCA on 12th St., but mostly he was
at 1749 S. St. NW. He came to D.C. to live with his mother and brother Kit, but
he also aspired to attend Howard University. On S. St., the small family lived
in two unheated, rented rooms (DC Writers). Across the street lived the parents
of Charles Hamilton Houston, who would be a 1950s law professor at Howard. Hughes
also visited Saturday night salons of neighbor Georgia Douglas Johnson, who
lived at 1641 S. St. NW. Here Hughes was able to “discuss literature, eat cake, and drink wine” (Mills).
This building has been torn down—1631
remains (see photo). These would have been luxuries to Hughes, who was desperately
poor at the time. To raise money, he held a series of odd jobs, including proof
reading for the Washington Sentinel
and busing tables at the Wardman Park hotel. At the segregated hotel, poet Vachel
Lindsay read Hughes’s poetry and gave him his break (Cultural Tourism). Hughes began his career: “While living in DC, he published his first book of
poems, The Weary Blues (1926), and wrote
most of the poems that would become his second book, Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)” (DC
Writers). In his memoir The Big Sea
and in the article “Our Wonderful Society, Washington (Opportunity, Aug. 1927), he describes his struggles during these
years with class issues. In Lawrence and Kansas City he had a background in
popular cultures of the time—blues, early jazz, oral literatures, dance. He
continued to seek out arts of the common African American people while he was
in Washington D.C. (Mills).
A personal
note: in Lawrence, my hometown, many buildings where Hughes attended school,
plays, church services, and worked are still standing. A grocery store his
grandfather owned in the 1880s is still standing on the main street. See more
photos in Langston Hughes in Lawrence,
by Denise Low and Thomas Weso, http://www.mammothpublications.com/catalog1.0.html
It is a total coincidence that son Daniel Low, from Lawrence, has a house
within a block of Langston’s residence, or is it?
Photos all ©
by Denise Low, 2012.“Langston Hughes Residence: African American Heritage Trail.” Cultural Tourism D.C. 1999-2012. Web.
“Langston Hughes.” DC Writers’ Homes. 2012. Web.
Fitzpatrick, Sandra and Maria R. Goodwin, The Guide to Black Washington, rev. ed. (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1999).
Freund, David M.P. and Marya Annette McQuirter, Biographical Supplement and Index, Young Oxford History of African Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
Mills, Paul T. “Langston Hughes.” The Black Renaissance in Washington. June 20, 2003. Web.
Gatewood, Willard B. Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880-1920 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 338.
Rampersad, Arnold. Life of Langston Hughes (2 volumes from Oxford University, 1988, 1986)
