HUGHES@100
In Partnership with the Smithsonian Institution
February 25, 2002, Carmichael Hall
The Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH), the Smithsonian Institution’s America’s Jazz Heritage Program (A Partnership of the Lila-Wallace Readers Digest Fund), and the Program in African American Culture of the National Museum of History presented a special event in celebration of the centennial of the birth of Langston Hughes.
On February 25 at 11am in Carmichael Auditorium, National Museum of American History, Behring Center we explored Langston Hughes’ connection to the development of America’s classical music, jazz, in a special musical reading from Hughes’ The First Book of Jazz. Originally published in 1955, Hughes’ First Book is a young people-friendly primer on the musical heritage that informed so much of his writing. Excerpts from this charming and informative text were read by Mr. Reuben Jackson with the accompaniment of a first-rate ensemble that played examples from the text. Also featured in the program was be a multimedia presentation introducing Langston’s position within the vibrant artistic climate of the Harlem Renaissance and a special dramatic reading of Langston’s works by students from the Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts and the DC WritersCorps.