King & Hughes: An Incorruptible Friendship
In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday and to mark the tumultuous era we find ourselves in in this country, we revisit the intriguing and complicated friendship between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King and poet and author Langston Hughes and the role of government in that. It serves as a reminder.
I recently was talking about the sacrifices we sometimes must make, when to achieve an important goal (many times a goal bigger than ourselves), we might have to hide our own truths. I see an example of this in the relationship between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Langston Hughes.
Dr. King appreciated Hughes’ poetry and often quoted his work, most notably “Mother to Son” in a speech given in 1956 to honor his wife Coretta on her first Mother’s Day.
As the fight for Civil Rights continued and Dr. King became ever more its symbol in the nation’s mind, King would have to make a decision to distance himself from Hughes, a decision I suspect must have been a difficult one. The reason for the schism was the labeling of Langston Hughes as a Communist sympathizer. Indeed the poet and author was one of many Americans victimized by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy and his so called House Un-American Activities Committee, where he testified on March 26, 1953.
If Dr. King were to escape the label of “communist sympathizer”, a resolution to create space between them was unavoidable. The friendship continued, but carefully. As Dr. King led the Civil Rights movement in the United States, I imagine that he took heart in the poetry of his friend.
“Harlem”
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.Or does it explode?
One can interpret the use of the word explode to mean violence, but Scott Challener suggests that “two other meanings of explosion are in play—the rapid growth of a population and the breakdown of a misconception, as when someone or something “explodes” a cultural myth, fantasy, or deeply held assumption.”
Dr. King’s perspective, as with us all, evolved over time. Working with President Lyndon Baines Johnson and many others he lived to see The Voting Rights Act of 1965 enacted as well as advancements in the area of civil rights. Soon Dr. King would begin to see that there was a significant relationship between the civil rights movement and the peace movement in the United States. King felt that the money being poured into the war effort would better be used for the poor and disenfranchised in America. While he had been a supporter of LBJ and his “Great Society”, he indicated that the conflict in Vietnam was little more than the U.S.’ attempt at imperialism. This led to a breakdown between Johnson and Dr. King. The straw that broke the camel’s back was Dr. King’s speech delivered at the Riverside Church in New York, exactly one year before he was assassinated, entitled “Beyond Vietnam—A Time to Break Silence”. King lent his estimable voice to those who opposed the war on moral ground. Vietnam had become a bridge too far. It is an example of how Dr. King continually continued to expand his horizons as his friend Langston Hughes had done. It would also lead to the severing of his relationship with LBJ. One wonders, however, if Dr. King’s speech didn’t have an impact on President Johnson’s decision to pull out of the 1968 presidential contest.
No matter how one looks at it, examples of courage abound in the lives of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Langston Hughes. The friendship was valuable and incorruptible. Oh, to have been in the room where these two great men shared their thoughts and their hearts. May we aspire to the courage and sense of duty of them both.
Dedicated to my dear pastor and friend, the Reverend Dr. Fred L. Steen, Sr.
. . . from whom much was required.
Martin Luther King Memorial, Oberlin, Ohio
“Very few, if any, of us are able to see all our hopes fulfilled,” Paul’s life was the tragic story of a shattered dream and blasted hope.”
Why We Must Not Forget.
Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested Sept. 4, 1958, in Montgomery, Alabama, by patrolman J.V. Johnson, right center, and O.M. Strickland, left center. Charged with “loitering,” King was arrested while standing on a street outside the courtroom where his friend Ralph Abernathy was appearing for trial. This is eerily similar to events that occurred this summer all over the country in response to the George Floyd murder in Minnepaolis, Minnesota.
“Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”
VIDEO: “Mother To Son”, read by the author.
A Note
I remember where I was when President Kennedy was shot. I remember what I was doing when both Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. I remember distinctly where I was when I heard about the attacks on 9/11. I recall what I felt when I learned that my fourth born child was a little girl. I remember exactly where I was when I fell in “real” love for the first time but. . .
. . .there is only one poem for which I can say the same thing. I remember where I was, what I was doing, when I heard about the poem “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes. I especially remember the chill that ran down my spine as I read the monologue between a mother and her son. I felt what her son must have felt upon hearing a mother’s message of reality mixed with hope. That as hard as life can be, there was always the ability to pick oneself up and carry on. I did not know who Langston Hughes was yet after reading his poem, I wanted to know him and know his work. No other poem before or since has touched me in this way.
