Langston Hughes — Cultural Exchange - The Collected Poems

In the In the Quarter In the Quarter of the Negroes Where the doors are doors of paper Dust of dingy atoms Blows a scratchy sound. Amorphous jack-o'-Lanterns caper And the wind won't wait for midnight For fun to blow doors down. By the river and the railroad With fluid far-off going Boundaries bind unbinding A whirl of whistles blowing. No trains or steamboats going-- Yet Leontyne's unpacking. In the Quarter of the Negroes Where the doorknob lets in Lieder More than German ever bore, Her yesterday past grandpa-- Not of her own doing-- In a pot of collard greens Is gently stewing. There, forbid us to remember, Comes an African in mid-December Sent by the state department Among the shacks to meet the blacks: Leontyne Sammy Harry Poitier Lovely Lena Marian Louis Pearlie Mae George S. Schuyler molto bene Come what may Langston Hughes In the Quater of the Negroes Where the railroad and the river Have doors that face each way And the entrance to the movie's up an alley up the side. Pushcarts fold and unfold In the supermarket sea. And we better find out, mama, Where is the colored laundromat Since we moved up to Mount Vernon. Ralph Ellison as Vespucius Ina-Youra at the masthead Arna Bontemps chief consultant Molton bene mellow baby Pearlie Mae Shalom Aleichem Jimmy Baldwin Sammy Come what may – the signs point: Ghana Guinea And the toll bridge from Westchester Is a gangplank rocking risky Between the deck and shore Of a boat that never quite Knew its destination. In the Quarter of the Negroes Ornette and consternation Claim attention from the papers That have no news that day of Moscow. In the pot behind the paper doors on the old iron stove what's cooking? What's smelling, Leontyne? Lieder, lovely Lieder And a leaf of collard green. Lovely Lieder, Leontyne. In the shadow of the Negroes Nkrumah In the shadow of the Negroes Nasser Nasser In the shadow of the Negroes Zik Azikiwe Cuba Castro Guinea Touré For need or propaganda Kenyatta And from the Tom dogs of the cabin The cocoa and the cane brake The chain gang and the slave block Tarred and feathered nations Seagram's and four roses $5.00 bags a deck or dagga. Filibuster versus veto Won't let go until it thunders Won't let go until it thunders Tears the body from the shadow Won't let go until it thunders In the Quarter of the Negroes And they asked me right at Christmas If my blackness, would I rub off? I said, Ask your mama. Dreams and nightmares! Nightmares, dreams, oh! Dreaming that the Negroes Of the South have taken over-- Voted all the Dixiecrats Right out of power-- Comes the COLORED HOUR: Martin Luther King is Governor of Georgia, Dr. Rufus Clement his Chief Adviser, A. Philip Randolph the High Grand Worthy. In white-pillared mansions Sitting on their wide verandas, Wealthy Negroes have white servants, White sharecroppers work the black plantations, And colored children have white mammies: Mammy Faubus Mammy Eastland Mammy Wallace Dear, dear darling old white mammies-- Sometimes even buried with our family. Dear old Mammy Faubus! Culture, they say, is a two-way street: Hand me my mint julep, mammy. Hurry up! Make haste!