The University of Chicago
CHICAGO 37, ILLINOIS
The Department of Education

THE LABORATORY SCHOOL
OFFICE - THE DIRECTOR

October 25, 1947

Mr. Langston Hughes
c/o W. Colston Leigh, Inc.
77 West Washington Street
Chicago 2, Illinois

Dear Mr. Hughes:

By this time you probably have heard that you are to address the opening session of the National Convention of the American Education Fellowship in Chicago on the evening of Thursday, November 27. I hope through this letter I can explain, at least in part, the assignment which your friends at Colston Leigh and I have committed you to.

The Fellowship, (until recently known as the Progressive Education Association,) is a comparatively small (cir. 7000 members) organization of teachers and parents whose interest is to promote the best possible educational methods and opportunities for American youngsters. The Fellowship cannot lay claim to sole authorship of progressive educational ways; nor are all the educational liberals within its folds. Yet for the last twenty-five years it has exercised influence and leadership in American education quite out of proportion to its size.

The meeting in Chicago is the first National Convention since the war. With the liberal point of view under pressure in many areas, but notably in the area of human understandings, The Program Committee chose as the theme for the Convention "Education for Democratic Human Relations - ships". You can obtain a general idea of the topics to be treated at various sessions and, hence, the program for which you will, in effect, be the keynote speaker from the folder I am enclosing.

In considering the various ideas which ought to be examined, we thought immediately of the part that communication, in its many forms, plays in determining the nature of human relations. We are especially pleased to have you as the speaker to treat this subject because of your skill in using at least one medium of communication in influencing men and women. How you should handle the topic is obviously at your discretion; but I think I should say that just because your audience will be largely school people does not call for your handling the topic in a technical or professional manner.

To help you drive home your points and to demonstrate the operation of another medium of communication, we have enlisted the services of the Chicago Unit of Stage for Action. Since a special script is to be prepared for the program, we should very much like to have some idea of the points you will want to make; and also your judgment as to whether you would like to deliver your address in one piece, so to speak, or to have it interspersed with dramatic contributions. I fear, of course, that with time pressing as it does the Stage for Action group may have to go ahead using its judgement as to the ideas it should try to get across; and to plan to

make their contributions either before or after your talk. But we should
certainly like to hear from you as to your ideas and suggestions as soon
as possible, for changes at the last moment are always possible.

The script writers are going to work on November 1, so that if you
could let us have a least a few suggestions soon after that date we should
be much pleased. Of course, the writers have said that what they would
like most would be a chance to sit down with you to talk and work out the
whole evening's program, but I presume that is not possible to arrange.

We are all looking forward to seeing and hearing you soon. I should
be personally pleased if you would feel free to call on me for any assistance
I can render you by way of making your trip to Chicago more enjoyable.

WCS:hb

THE LABORATORY SCHOOL
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR

October 30, 1947

Mr. Langston Hughes
C/O W. Colston Leigh, Inc.
77 West Washington
Chicago, Illinois

Dear Mr. Hughes,

This is another note about the program in which you are
going to take part here in Chicago on Thanksgiving evening.
You will remember from my first letter that I said the Stage
for Action Group was going to help out with that program.
Yesterday I had a conference with the script writer who is
responsible for turning out the material the Stage for Action
Group are going to use; and she is as anxious as she can be to
get some idea from you about the kind of thing you are going
to say and do. But that is not the particular point of this
letter.

In working over the evening's program in its entirety,
we came to the conclusion that we should like to recommend
to you that you talk for about 35 minutes and that you add
perhaps ten minutes more of readings from your own poetry.
I come now to the specific proposal. I discovered somewhat
by accident the group of your poems which appeared in the
autumn issue of Common Ground. All of us here were much im-
pressed by the one entitled, "The Kids in School", and I
noticed too that that is set to music. We wonder whether you
would be interested and willing to have Win Stracke sing that
as part of the evening's program, and perhaps to insert his
singing of it in your reading of the group of your own poems.
If that idea appeals to you, and if there are others of your
writings which Stracke could do for you, won't you drop me a
line so that we can carry out our plans along those lines.

WCS: do

November 18, 1947

Mr. Langston Hughes
634 St. Nicholas Avenue
New York, 30, New York

Dear Mr. Hughes,

You have no idea how delighted I was to receive
your letter yesterday afternoon. We were pleased,
of course, to hear from you and to know that you were
coming; but our pleasure came more largely from the
warm and cordial tone. Everything you propose to do
seems to me to be eminently appropriate. I was much
taken by your proposal to try to keep the professors
from being bored. You apparently have seen enough
conventions and enough professors at them to have
well sensed their characteristic appearance.

I sent a copy of your letter to the Stage for
Action Group and no doubt you will be hearing from
them directly. In any event, they are planning a
rehearsal of their program about 5 o'clock of
Thanksgiving afternoon; and while they will not of
course want you to rehearse your talk, it may be
interesting to you to be around to see how they pro-
pose to handle you and the rest of us.

This new paragraph represents a time lapse of
about five minutes for I have just had a call from
the Stage For Action folk who say that following the
request you made in your letter they are scheduling
you for about 45 minutes and are counting on your
talking all in one piece.

A reservation has been made for you at the
Hotel Stevens and some member of the local arrange-
ments committee will pick you up either at the station
or at the airport. Hence, it would be very helpful
if you could drop us a note saying when and where
you expect to arrive in Chicago.