Hughes Langston - Remember me to Harlem : the letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964

Table of Contents

For Clara Jean Jefferson Bernard, poet, mother, friend
and
for Bruce Kellner, thank you

Acclaim for Emily BernardsREMEMBER ME TO HARLEM

A rich, informative collection; Bernards commentary is both easy and thorough.

Vibe

A gratifying portrait of two people who followed their passions and seemed to have had an extremely good time along the way.

Black Issues Book Review

The letters between the two friends are a joywarm, witty and intelligent.

Austin American-Statesman

A wonderful trove, overflowing with rich cultural history and chatty asides.

Time Out New York

These letters, superbly chosen, attest to the depth of [Hughes and Van Vechtens] relationship, its sparkling optimism, its priceless sense of honor, and its determination to survive despite the expectations of a needlessly divided nation.

Arnold Rampersad,
author of The Life of Langston Hughes

A testament to how mutual affection and common interest can eradicate the barriers of race, age, class and culture.

The Commercial Appeal

Emily Bernards lucid, scrupulous annotation bring this rich period to life.

Steven Watson,
author of The Harlem Renaissance

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book exists because of the insight, generosity, and guidance of many remarkable people. I am grateful to Harold Ober Associates, lawyers for the Langston Hughes Estate, for granting me permission to reprint the letters of Langston Hughes. Donald Gallup and Joseph Solomon, former literary trustee and executor, respectively, for the Estate of Carl Van Vechten, were enthusiastic about this project from the start. Bruce Kellner, successor literary trustee of the Carl Van Vechten Estate, and Arnold Rampersad, executor of the Langston Hughes Estate, provided incalculable assistance and tremendous support. To them, I am forever indebted.

I thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for providing me with the support that enabled me to complete this book. Smith College generously granted me a leave so that I could devote myself to this project. I am particularly grateful to President Ruth Simmons and Provost John Connolly for their attention to the details that made my year away from Smith a smooth and efficient one. While at Smith, I could always depend upon the support of colleagues Brenda Allen, Ann Ferguson, Elizabeth V. Spelman, and Marilyn Schuster. Smith colleagues Dan and Helen Horowitz provided me with shelter and fabulous evenings in Cambridge during my time away from Smith. I spent my year off at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University, and it became my sanctuary. I thank Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Richard Newman, particularly, for their generosity and encouragement during that memorable year. Nina Kollars, Evelyn Hurley, and Kevin Rabener were staff members at the Du Bois Institute whose skill and humor made every day I spent there a pleasure. I am grateful to the faculty and staff at Penn State Harrisburg for their support of this project in its final stages.

I am grateful to the administrators and staff of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, where most of the correspondence of both Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten can be found in the James Weldon Johnson Collection, which is part of the Yale Collection of American Literature. Patricia Willis, curator of the Collection of American Literature, is a dear friend upon whose encouragement and example I have come to depend. The staff at the Beinecke Library became a surrogate family during my numerous visits. I thank Steve Jones, Maureen Heher, Ngadi Kponou, and Alfred Mueller for their skill, patience, and unwavering hospitality.

I am indebted to the Estate of Zora Neale Hurston, and their literary agent, Victoria Sanders, for generously allowing me to quote from several letters written by Zora Neale Hurston. At the New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division, where the Carl Van Vechten papers are housed, I was lucky to have the support of staff members like Angie Sierra and Ben Alexander. At the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin, I was guided through the Alfred A. Knopf papers by a talented and helpful staff. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture contained helpful written material and photographs.

Last but far from least among the institutions I would like to acknowledge is Yale University, in whose classrooms I first learned about the friendship between Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten. Yale College Dean Richard Brodhead, Jean-Christophe Agnew, Hazel V. Carby, Langdon Hammer, Carla Kaplan, Robert B. Stepto, Candace Waid, and Linda Watts were teachers during my undergraduate and graduate years at Yale from whom, gratefully, I continue to learn.

I am indebted to my editor, Judith Jones, for putting her faith in me and guiding this project to completion. Her guidance and care were remarkable. Her skillful assistant, Ken Schneider, is a friend and an advocate. I thank the copyeditor, Kate Scott, for her diligence as well as her interest in this book. I am grateful for the expertise of Rita Madrigal, the production editor.

My agent, Faith Hampton Childs, is a mentor and a champion. I thank her for believing in this project and its editor from the very beginning.

I am grateful to Richard Avedon for his generous support of this project.

I am pleased to thank the many people who contributed to the research required to complete this project. Elizabeth Barnes, Jaime Castle, Jessica Eldridge, Malice Grant, Kemi Illesamni, Bryna McClane, Emily Musil, Alana Samuels, and Shant Smalls were brilliant research assistants whose commitment to their work delighted and inspired me. Laura Yow contributed her extraordinary research skills to this project as well as her patience and support to its editor. I thank Warren Bernard for his knowledge and skill in both photography and computers. Elizabeth Alexander, Mia Bay, ALeila Bundles, George Chauncey, Farrah Griffin, George Hutchinson, Amy Kaplan, Carla Kaplan, Pete Miller, Honor Moore, Jill Nelson, Richard Newman, Robert OMeally, Kathleen Pfeiffer, Darryl Pinckney, Barbara Rodriguez, David Roessel, Steven Watson, and Tom Wirth provided invaluable support through their writing or conversationoften both. Carla Kaplans constant encouragement and incisive commentary saw this book and its editor through many unsure hours.

I thank Davida Pines for telling me I could do this book. Elizabeth Alexander, Nol Alicea, James Bernard, Warren Bernard, Lisa Collins, Eleanor DesPrez, Casey Greenfield, Miranda Massie, Martha Nadell, Sandhya Shukla, Michelle Stephens, Heidi Tinsman, Mike Vazquez, and Sarah Weir are all friends and family who counseled, comforted, and sometimes cajoled, until the book was done. John Gennari I thank for his immeasurable love, faith, and patience.

Finally, I am honored to thank, in particular, Bruce Kellner and Arnold Rampersad, whose professional accomplishments and personal generosity set a humbling example. Both of these men read countless drafts and entertained even more countless questions. They cheered me when I was on a productive path and righted me when I strayed, doing both with a benevolence that I will always seek to emulate. I simply could not have done this book without the scholarship, counsel, and contributions of both of these extraordinary men.