There Was a Party for Langston

“There was a party for Langston at the library. A jam in Harlem for the word-making man.”

This quotation establishes the setting for the frame narrative, the Schomburg Center in Harlem, and the central plot of the book, a celebration in honor of Langston Hughes. The narrator uses “jam” as a synonym for a party to invoke the Harlem Renaissance, jazz, and jazz poetry.

“Harlem. Where new dances are born.”

These words are formed within the illustrations for these pages. “Harlem” is formed by an arrangement of lit windows in a series of six six-story, walk-up buildings, while the rest of the sentence is illustrated in the street. Especially during the Harlem Renaissance, new forms of literature, poetry, art, music, and dance were innovated.

“There was a blowout for Langston, to celebrate the man who wrote wake-up stories and rise-and-shine rhymes ever since he was just a little boy daydreaming under the Ohio sky.”

These sentences contribute to the theme of Artistic Inspiration and Its Influence Across Generations. Langston’s poetry provided recognition and representation to readers who experienced similar things as he did and provided realistic accounts of Black life in America for those who did not experience similar things. In both cases, Langston’s poetry and influence helped people wake up.