THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF
THE
LANGSTON HUGHES SOCIETY
Since 1981
On April 22, 1982, the Langston Hughes Society held its first annual meeting in conjunction with the forty-second annual convention of the College Language Association (CLA) in Charlotte, North Carolina.​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
The Langston Hughes Review, founded 1982, is the official publication of the Langston Hughes Society. It was relaunched in 2019 with Vol. 25, No. 1 and is currently under the editorship of Dr. Tony Bolden.
Further Readings:
Berry, Faith. “The Universality of Langston Hughes.” Langston Hughes Review 1.2 (Fall 1982): 1-10.​
Deck, Alice A. “The Langston Hughes Society: Its Inaugural Year.” Langston Hughes Review 1.2 (Fall 1982): 27-28.
​Hubbard, Dolan. “Langston Hughes Society.” The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature (5 volumes). Ed.
Hans Ostrom and Associate Ed. J. David Macey, Jr. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. 3: 955-57.​
---. “Langston Hughes Society.” Organizing Black America: An Encyclopedia of African American Associations. Ed. Nina
Mjagkij. New York: Garland, 2001. 299-300.
​Miller, R. Baxter. “Langston Hughes.” Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 51: Afro-American Writers from the Harlem
Renaissance to 1940. Eds. Trudier Harris and Thadious M. Davis. Detroit: Gale Research, 1987. 112-33.​

Resources:
-
Beineke Rare Book and Manuscript Library​
-
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
-
The Academy of American Poets​
-
Resources and Bibliography at the University of Kansas​
-
University of Missouri Press​
Founded in 1981, the Langston Hughes Society (LHS) was the first scholarly association named in honor of an African-American writer. The LHS is a national association of scholars, teachers, creative and performing artists, students, and lay persons who seek to increase awareness and appreciation of Langston Hughes (1 Feb. 1902–22 May 1967), the first African American to make his living solely by his pen. Throughout his four decades of literary creativity that is virtually unrivaled in American letters even today, Hughes wrote fifty books, including poetry, drama, autobiography, history, fiction, prose comedy, juvenile literature, librettos, and black gospel song-plays. The LHS welcome scholars and lay persons who are interested in promoting the legacy of Langston Hughes.​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
The LHS founding meeting was held in the Baltimore, MD, home of Therman and Lillian O’Daniel on June 26, 1981, the anniversary date that Hughes received the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP in 1960.​
Later, in October 1981, the six founding members met in Atlanta, GA, at the home of Millicent Dobbs Jordan from Spelman College, who had known Langston Hughes while he was a visiting teacher at the Atlanta University Center.
​
THE history of the langston hughes society