Foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley
Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Poet, the Crawfords, and the Pattersons

PART ONE: THE TUMULTUOUS 1930S

1 • Wither White Philanthropy—Thank You and God for “The Weary Blues”: October 1930–January 1932
2 • Moscow Bound in Black and White: March 1932–February 1933
3 • Horror in Scottsboro, Alabama, and War in Spain: May 1933–November 1937
4 • A People’s Theatre in Harlem and Black Anti-Fascism on the Rise: January 1938–December 1939

PART TWO: THE FAR-REACHING 1940S

5 • Early Political Repression: January 1940– November 1941
6 • World War II and Black Radical Organizing: June 1942–July 1944
7 • Ebb and Flow—To Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Back: July 1946– November 1949

PART THREE: THE FEARSOME 1950S AND THE PROMISING 1960S

8 • Mc Carthyism at Home, Independence Movements Abroad: July 1950–December 1959
9 • Civil Rights, Black Arts, and the People’s Poet: February 1961–August 1966

Glossary Personae
Index

Evelyn Louise Crawford,  a retired arts administrator and consultant, and Mary Louise Patterson,  a pediatrician in clinical practice, are the daughters of Langston Hughes’s cherished friends Evelyn Graves Crawford, Matt N. Crawford, Louise Thompson Patterson, and William L. Patterson. Hughes was a frequent guest in the homes of the two families and was like an uncle to to Evelyn Louise and Mary Louise.