Columbia’s Overdue Apology to Langston Hughes

Published in the print edition of the December 30, 1967, issue.

On a miserably wet evening seven months after the death of Langston Hughes, we sat, almost comfortably (except for our damp feet), in the cavernous Wollman Auditorium, at Columbia University, and listened to the low, bemused voice of Hughes on tape as, against a taped musical background, it sent his “Weary Blues” floating over a group of people who had assembled to pay tribute to him. The program, “A Langston Hughes Memorial Evening,” was sponsored by The Forum, which is, in the words of its nineteen-year-old president, Bruce Kanze, “a student organization that brings to the University interesting people whom the University itself would never consider bringing, to discuss issues and topics that are important.”

A few minutes after eight, when nearly every seat was filled, three men walked onto the stage: Leon Bibb, the actor and singer; Jonathan Kozol, author of “Death at an Early Age”; and Professor James P. Shenton, of Columbia. (“He teaches a course on Reconstruction—the closest thing to a course on Negro history at Columbia,” Mr. Kanze told us later.) They were soon joined by Miss Viveca Lindfors, the actress, who was wearing a pale-gray fur coat but removed it as she was sitting down, and gracefully placed it over her mini-exposed knees.

Professor Shenton, who had to leave early, was introduced, and hurried to the microphone. “I am here partly as a way of saying for Columbia that we owe some apologies,” he said solemnly. “For a while, there lived a poet down the street from Columbia, and Columbia never took the time to find out what he was about.” The Professor paused for a few seconds, and then continued, “For a while, there lived a poet down the street from Columbia, who even attended Columbia for a while, and yet he never received an honorary degree from here. When we buried him, then we gave him a memorial. But, after all, that’s the experience of the black man down the street from Columbia.”

Professor Shenton left the platform, and Mr. Kozol, a slim young man wearing rimless glasses, came to the microphone. In 1965, he was discharged from a ghetto school in Boston, in part because he read Langston Hughes’ poem “Ballad of the Landlord” to his class:

Landlord, landlord,My roof has sprung a leak.Don’t you ’member I told you about itWay last week?

Landlord, landlord,These steps is broken down.When you come up yourselfIt’s a wonder you don’t fall down.

Ten bucks you say I owe you?Ten bucks you say is due?Well, that’s ten bucks more’n I’ll pay youTill you fix this house up new.

What? You gonna get eviction orders?You gonna cut off my heat?You gonna take my furniture andThrow it in the street?

Um-huh! You talking high and mighty.Talk on—till you get through.You ain’t gonna be able to say a wordIf I land my fist on you.

Police! Police!Come and get this man!He’s trying to ruin the governmentand overturn the land!

Copper’s whistle!Patrol bell!Arrest.

Precinct station.Iron cell.Headlines in press:

MAN THREATENS LANDLORDTENANT HELD NO BAILJUDGE GIVES NEGRO 90 DAYS IN COUNTY JAIL

Mr. Kozol said that he might have avoided some of the trouble that eventually led to his firing if he had chosen to “restrict his reading and reference materials to the list of approved publications”—poetry, for instance, to be read from officially approved selections called “Memory Gems.” He gave the Hughes audience a sample:

“Dare to be right! Dare to be true:The failings of others can never save you.Stand by your conscience, your honor, your faith;Stand like a hero, and battle till death.”

And another:

“There is beauty in the sunshineAn’ clouds that roam the sky;There is beauty in the Heavens,An’ the stars that shine on high.”

Later, Mr. Kozol read from a paper that had been handed in by one of his fourth-grade students after he had asked the class to write about the kinds of things they saw around them:

“In my school I see dirty boards and I see papers on the floor. I see an old browken window with a sign on it saying, Do not unlock this window are browken. And I see cracks in the walls and I see old books with ink poured all over them and I see old painting hanging on the walls. I see old alfurbet letter hanging on one nail on the wall. I see a dirty fire exit, I see a old closet with supplys for the class. I see pigons flying all over the school. I see old freght trains throgh the fence of the school yard. . . .”

The young teacher spoke at length about his experiences in this school, and then read a few paragraphs from a description of Africa in a book called “Our Neighbors Near and Far”:

“Yumbu and Minko are a black boy and a black girl who live in this jungle village. Their skins are of so dark a brown color that they look almost black. Their noses are large and flat. Their lips are thick. Their eyes are black and shining, and their hair is so curly that it seems like wool. They are Negroes and they belong to the black race.”