20 East 127th Street,
New York 35, New York,
August 2, 1948.

Mr. Carl Sandburg,
Flat Rock,
North Carolina.

Dear Carl Sandburg,

Arna Bontemps and I have prepared for Doubleday and
Company a comprehensive anthology called, THE POETRY OF THE
NEGRO, containing not only the Negro poets of the United States,
but a Caribbean section as well, and a section of tributary
poems on Negro themes by non-Negro poets from Blake and Whitman
up to the present time. In this latter section we are delighted
to include two lovely poems of yours, JAZZ FANTASIA and MAMMY
HUMS. The publishers will be writing shortly (if you or your
publishers have not already heard) for the proper permissions.

There is, however, something that requires your own
personal permission. (As a poet myself I hesitate to ask it of
you, but the reasons I shall give will explain why.) The pub-
lishers expect THE POETRY OF THE NEGRO to have wide use in schools
and colleges. Nowadays some school boards absolutely refuse to
O.K. the use of books or songs that contain the word "nigger",
and the Negro schools of the South will often refuse to put such
books on their shelves. (I have run into that with some of my own
work.) You are my favorite contemporary American poet and, I repeat,
that I am very loath to ask this. But would you permit Mr. Bontemps
and I to delete the word "nigger" from the 7th line of your poem,
MAMMY HUMS? The line would then read thus:

Head, heels, and fingers rocked to the mammy humming of it,
to the mile-off steamboat landing whistle of it.

And would you be so kind as to air-mail me your answer in the en-
closed envelope, since we are about ready to go to press?

I still remember with great pleasure our meeting at
Lincoln University some years ago.

All my good wishes to you, as ever,

Sincerely yours,

Langston Hughes

Dear Carl Sandburg,

Sincerely yours,

Langston Hughes