“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is one of Hughes’ most famous poems and he wrote it when he was just 17 years old. He was on a train headed to see his father when the words came bubbling up.

A curator displays a copy of the book Famous Negro Music Makers, written and signed by Langston Hughes, in Harlem, New York, May. 17, 2016. Getty Every year since 1976, February has been ...

“Hold fast to dreams / For if dreams die / Life is a broken-winged bird / That cannot fly.” The voice of reader Angela Romans reciting the well-known opening lines of “Dreams” by the celebrated ...

That same year, Hughes wrote a poem about Dr. King and the bus boycott titled “ Brotherly Love.” At the time, Hughes was much more famous than King, who was honored to have become a subject ...

Messier by far that Hughes poem suggests. The year is not 1936, nor 1963. One can hardly expect the oppressed to voice their concerns in only ‘polite’ or ‘respectful’ forms.

In 1936, the writer Langston Hughes and the artist Elmer W. Brown — two Black men, one famous and the other not — wanted to publish a book.