But it was as a columnist for the famous African-American newspaper the Chicago Defender that Hughes chronicled the hopes and despair of his people. For twenty years, he wrote forcefully about international race relations, Jim Crow, the South, white supremacy, imperialism and fascism, segregation in the armed forces, the Soviet Union and communism, and African-American art and culture. None of the racial hypocrisies of American life escaped his searing, ironic prose.
This is the first collection of Hughes's nonfiction journalistic writings. For readers new to Hughes, it is an excellent introduction; for those familiar with him, it gives new insights into his poems and fiction.
| Cover Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Editorial Method Introduction Part 1: The See-Saw of Race No Half-Freedoms Key Chains with No Keys Get Together, Minorities The See-Saw of Race Sorry Spring U.S. Likes Nazis and Franco Better Than Its Own Negroes A Sentimental Journey to Cairo, Illinois The Dilemma of the Negro Teacher Facing Desegregation How to Integrate without Danger of Intermarriage A Brickbat for Education-A Kiss for the Bedroom in Dixie The Man of the Year for 1958 Sit Tight-and Don't Squirm Part 2: Jim Crow's Epitaph Are You Spanish? Doc, Wait! I Can't Sublimate! Theaters, Clubs, and Negroes Adventures in Dining Encounter at the Counter Freight With the Crumbling of the Old Chain, Jim Crow Crumbles, Too MacArthur Lives in the Waldorf-Astoria; Gilbert Lives in Jail From Rampart Street to Harlem I Follow the Trial of the Blues In Racial Matters in St. Louis "De Sun Do Move" Old Customs Die Hard Jim Crow's Epitaph Part 3: Fair Play in Dixie Letter to the South Hold Tight! They're Crazy-White! Nazi and Dixie Nordics Fair Play in Dixie Dear Old Southland The Death of Bilbo The Sunny South Far from Living Up to Its Name, Dixie Has Neither Manners nor Shame The Quaint, Queer, Funny Old South Has Its Ways Concerning a Great Mississippi Writer and the Southern Negro The Same Old Fight All Over Again in Dixie Part 4: Nerve of Some White Folks Jokes on Our White Folks Letter to White Shopkeepers Suggestions to White Shopkeepers The Snake in the House Nerve of Some White Folks Our White Folks: Shame! Our White Folks: So? Our White Folks: Boo! Those Little Things Harlem's Bitter Laughter The Folk Lore of Race Relations Part 5: Brazenness of Empire America after the War The World after the War The Detroit Blues Photographs from Teheran Colored Lived There Once Invasion!!!! Over-Ripe Apple The Animals Must Wonder The Fall of Berlin Part 6: Segregation-Fatigue He'd Leave Him Dying Ask for Everything If Dixie Invades Europe Gall and Glory Hey, Doc! I Got Jim Crow Shock! Fifty Young Negroes The Purple Heart War and a Sorry Fear V-J Night in Harlem North, South, and the Army Part 7: Are You a Communist? The Red Army Army of Liberation The Soviet Union The Soviet Union and Jews The Soviet Union and Color The Soviet Union and Women The Soviet Union and Health Faults of the Soviet Union Light and the Soviet Union Are You a Communist? A Thorn in the Side A Portent and a Warning to the Negro People from Hughes Old Ghost Appears before the Un-American Committee and Refuses to Remove His Hat The Accusers' Names Nobody Will Remember, but History Records Du Bois Why Ill Winds and Dark Clouds Don't Scare Negroes Much Part 8: Beating Out the Blues Child of Charm Music at Year's End The Duke Plays for Russia On Leaping and Shouting Art and Integrity Art...