Langston Hughes never knew of an America where lynching was absent from the cultural landscape. Jason Miller investigates the nearly three dozen poems written by Hughes on the subject of lynching to explore its varying effects on survivors, victims, and accomplices as they resisted, accepted, and executed this brutal form of sadistic torture. Starting from Hughes's life as a teenager during the Red Summer of 1919 and moving through the civil rights movement that took place toward the end of Hughes's life, Miller initiates an important dialogue between America's neglected history of lynching and some of the world’s most significant poems. This extended study of the centrality of these heinous acts to Hughes's artistic development, aesthetics, and activism represents a significant and long-overdue contribution to our understanding of the art and politics of Langston Hughes.

"Majestic. Grounded in astute interpretations of how speech acts function in history, this book is an exemplary model for future inquiries about the confluence of thought, poetry, and social action."--Jerry Ward Jr., coeditor of The Cambridge History of African American Literature "A vade mecum for those interested in the cultural ingredients, the political values, and the artistic sensibilities that united Langston Hughes and Martin Luther King Jr. in spirit, thought, and outlook. Masterfully conceived, meticulously researched, and gracefully written, this book breaks new ground."--Lewis V. Baldwin, author of There Is a Balm in Gilead: The Cultural Roots of Martin Luther King, Jr. "Archival material is spotlighted in Miller's exploration of the ways Martin Luther King Jr. enlarged the appeal of his rhetoric by using poetry in his speeches. Readers will emerge with a greater appreciation of both King and Langston Hughes."--Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper, editor of The Later Simple Stories (The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Volume 8) "Miller's study provides an original, engaging and provocative thesis that explores the hitherto unexplored links between two twentieth century African American icons."--John A. Kirk, editor of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement: Controversies and Debates For years, some scholars have privately suspected Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech was connected to Langston Hughes's poetry, and the link between the two was purposefully veiled through careful allusions in King's orations. In Origins of the Dream, W. Jason Miller lifts that veil to demonstrate how Hughes's revolutionary poetry became a measurable inflection in King's voice, and that the influence can be found in more than just the one famous speech. Miller contends that by employing Hughes's metaphors in his speeches, King negotiated a political climate that sought to silence the poet's subversive voice. He argues that by using allusion rather than quotation, King avoided intensifying the threats and accusations against him, while allowing the nation to unconsciously embrace the incendiary ideas behind Hughes's poetry.

This informative edition explores the poetry of Langston Hughes through the lens of race. Coverage includes an examination of Hughes's life and influences; a look at key ideas related to race in Hughes's poetry, including the influence of African-American music, the use of poetry to address racial problems, and the politics of Hughes's anti-lynching poems; and contemporary perspectives on race, such as the decline of civil rights reform and the role of hip-hop in shaping black music.

As the first black author in America to make his living exclusively by writing, Langston Hughes inspired a generation of writers and activists. One of the pioneers of jazz poetry, Hughes led the Harlem Renaissance, while Martin Luther King, Jr., invoked Hughes’s signature metaphor of dreaming in his speeches. In this new biography, W. Jason Miller illuminates Hughes’s status as an international literary figure through a compelling look at the relationship between his extraordinary life and his canonical works. Drawing on unpublished letters and manuscripts, Miller addresses Hughes’s often ignored contributions to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, as well as his complex and well-guarded sexuality, and repositions him as a writer rather than merely the most beloved African American poet of the twentieth century.