American - Poet | February 1, 1902 - May 22, 1967
I must never write when I do not want to write.
Langston Hughes
WantNeverWriteMust
I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, why Democracy means, everybody but me.
MeDemocracyWhySeeLordMeans
Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.
HumorYouGotLaughingOught
Violent anger makes me physically ill.
AngerMeViolentMakesPhysically
Certainly there is, for the American Negro artist who can escape the restrictions the more advanced among his own group would put upon him, a great field of unused material ready for his art.
GreatArtAmericanArtistReadyHim
My personal experience has been that in my 25 years of writing, I have not been asked to do more than four or five commercial one-shot scripts. These were performed on major national hook-ups but produced for me no immediate additional jobs or requests. One script for BBC was done around the world with an all-star cast.
ExperienceMeWritingWorldPersonal
We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.
ColorBlackCensorshipLineBegins
My chief literary influences have been Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman. My favorite public figures include Jimmy Durante, Marlene Dietrich, Mary McLeod Bethune, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marian Anderson, and Henry Armstrong.
InfluencesChiefFavoriteBeenHenry
Without going outside his race, and even among the better classes with their 'white' culture and conscious American manners, but still Negro enough to be different, there is sufficient matter to furnish a black artist with a lifetime of creative work.
WorkCultureCreativeBlackBetter
Even the 'Negro' shows like 'Amos and Andy' and 'Beulah' are written largely by white writers - the better to preserve the stereotypes, I imagine.
BetterWhiteStereotypesImagine
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