Nina Simone's Letter to Langston Hughes

Then too, if I'm in a negative mood and want to get more negative (about the racial problem, I mean) if I want to get downright mean and violent I go straight to this book and there is also material for that.



Sometimes when I'm with white "liberals" who want to know hy we're so bitter - I forget (I don't forget - I just get tongue-tied) how complete has been the white race#s rejection of us all these years and when this happens I go get your book.



I know one thing - I've always admired you and been proud of you - respected you and felt honored to know you - but brother, you got a fan now!





images via

A lot of Hell but a Good Time. Nina Simone.

Do you think that your child will be living through the revolutionary years?



"I don't know, love. Whatever it is she's going to have pride in her own blackness. She's going to have a chance to be more than just somebody who's on the outside looking in. Like it's been for most of us, and my parents before me, but she may see more bloodshed than I've ever even dreamed of. I have no way of knowing that evolution. The cycle goes round and round. It's time for us."



"It's a good time for black people to be alive. It's a lot of hell, a lot of violence, but I feel more alive now than I ever have in my life. I have a chance to live as I've dreamed." (via)



photographs via and via and via

I, Too

Langston Hughes's poem "I, Too" was first published in 1926. Today, the quote "I, too, am America" is written in large letters on the wall of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture that opened in Washington, DC in 2016.



I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

by Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

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In 18 lines, Hughes expresses the relationship of black US-Americans to the majority society, its complexity, its pain.

"There is a multi-dimensional pun in the title, “I, too” in the lines that open and close the poem. If you hear the word as the number two, it suddenly shifts the terrain to someone who is secondary, subordinate, even, inferior.Hughes powerfully speaks for the second-class, those excluded. The full-throated drama of the poem portrays African-Americans moving from out of sight, eating in the kitchen, and taking their place at the dining room table co-equal with the “company” that is dining. Intriguingly, Langston doesn’t amplify on who owns the kitchen. The house, of course, is the United States and the owners of the house and the kitchen are never specified or seen because they cannot be embodied. Hughes’ sly wink is to the African-Americans who worked in the plantation houses as slaves and servants. He honors those who lived below stairs or in the cabins. Even excluded, the presence of African-Americans was made palpable by the smooth running of the house, the appearance of meals on the table, and the continuity of material life. Enduring the unendurable, their spirit lives now in these galleries and among the scores of relic artifacts in the museum’s underground history galleries and in the soaring arts and culture galleries at the top of the bronze corona-shaped building." David C. Ward

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Photograph of Langston Hughes taken by the great Gordon Parks in Illinois, 1941 via

Tired of waiting

"I am so tired of waiting.
Aren't you,
for the world to become good
and beautiful and kind?"
Langston Hughes



photograph of James Mercer Langston Hughes (1902-1967) via

The Backlash Blues

"Backlash Blues" is one of Nina Simone's civil rights songs. The lyrics were written by poet, novelist and social activist James Mercer Langston Hughes who was one of the most important thinkers of Harlem Renaissance and a close friend of Nina Simone's (via).



Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash
Just who do think I am
You raise my taxes, freeze my wages
And send my son to Vietnam

You give me second class houses
And second class schools
Do you think that alla colored folks
Are just second class fools
Mr. Backlash, I'm gonna leave you
With the backlash blues

When I try to find a job
To earn a little cash
All you got to offer
Is your mean old white backlash
But the world is big
Big and bright and round
And it's full of folks like me
Who are black, yellow, beige and brown
Mr. Backlash, I'm gonna leave you
With the backlash blues

Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash
Just what do you think I got to lose
I'm gonna leave you
With the backlash blues
You're the one will have the blues
Not me, just wait and see

Nina Simone



The song:
::: Backlash Blues (Montreaux, 1976): WATCH/LISTEN
::: Backlash Blues (Paris, 1968): WATCH/LISTEN



The following text was also written by Langston Hughes (for the liner notes to Nina Simone's album "Broadway-Blues-Ballads).

The One and Only Nina Simone, a tribute by Langston Hughes:

She is strange. So are the plays of Brendan Behan, Jean Genet, LeRoi Jones, and Bertold Brecht.

She is far out, and at the same time common. So are raw eggs in Worcestershire and the CONNECTION.

She is different. So was Billie Holiday, St. Francis, and John Donne. So is Mort Sahl. So is Willie Mays.

She is a club member, a colored girl, an Afro-American, a homey from Down Home. She has hit the Big Town, the big towns, the LP discs and the TV shows–and she is still from down home. She did it mostly all by herself. Her name is Nina Simone.

She has a flair, but no air. She has class, but does not wear it on her shoulders. Only chips. She is unique. You either like her or you don’t. If you don’t, you won’t. If you do–wheee-ouuu-eu! You do!

Some folks never did learn to like Billie Holiday. Some folks don’t like Eartha Kitt. To some Edith Piaf never meant peanuts. To others Mabel Mercer could come for free, and Jackie Mabley is not worth a dime. Bert Williams may be drug your mama and Valida Snow your papa. Tastes differ. For some tastes Ethel Waters was and Pearl Bailey is, Bing Crosby was and Frank Sinatra is, George Walker was and Sammy Davis is. But Elvis, No! Ornette Coleman, not Barbara Dane, not Jacob Lawrence, never! And don’t mention Lotte Lenya.

Everybody has a right to like whoever he likes and whatever he likes in life and in the arts. Some folks in religion like the Rev. Howard Thurman, some like Father Divine, others prefer Benjamin Mays and some Mother Horne. In literature many read Frank Yerby and some read James Baldwin.

In politics some like Goldwater and some like Nasser. In food some like chitterlings, some caviar.

In entertainment some like Nipsey Russell, some like Charles Aznavour, some like Dorothy Donegan, and some like Nina Simone.

Why should anyone like her because she plays piano well? So do lots of other people. But she plays piano FLUIDLY well, SIMPLY well, COMPLICATEDLY well, THEATRICALLY well, DRAMATICALLY well, INDIVIDUALLY well, and MADLY well. Not just WELL.

Why should one like Nina Simone because she sings a song differently? Plenty of singers sing songs differently. But many singers strain so hard to be different, pay arrangers so much money to make their songs sound different, but have no convictions themselves about what they are singing, and so seem hollow, artificial, fake, and wrong when they sing a song. Nina Simone is as different as beer is from champagne, crackers from crepes suzettes, Eastland from Adam Powell, Houston from Paris– each real in their way, but Oh! how different– and how fake it is if it is not Houston you want but the “city of light.”

The letters l-i-v-e that spell LIVE mean exactly the same as the letters N-i-n-a that spell NINA. As for that word SIMONE–be cool, Jack, be cool! And listen to this album.

Langston Hughes

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Related postings:
- The day Nina Simone's skin grew a little more black
- Nina Simone

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photographs of Nina Simone (BBC TV Centre, 1968, by David Redfern) via and via and via, copyrights by the respective owners