These two MITH-sponsored events were held in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of America’s great literary forces, the poet Langston Hughes. The first event, held on February 9, 2002 at Clarice Smith Center for Performing Arts, was a Poetry Slam produced in collaboration with Border’s Books & Music, the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the African Diaspora, the Clarice Smith Center and the Committee on Africa and the Americas. The second event, Langston’s First Book of Jazz, was a collaboration with 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. It was held on February 25, 2002 in Carmichael Hall at the National Museum of American History.
MITH’s archived website for the Hughes@100 events contains video of the Hughes Poetry Slam, and select clips from Langston’s First Book of Jazz.