43 W. 66 St
New York City

Dec. 9, 1927

Dear Langston,

I am leaving for the South on Wed. 14th on the
3:40 from the Penn Station enroute to Mobile. I shall see Cudjoe
Lewis first as he is old and may die before I get to him otherwise.
Wish that I could see you for the few minutes I will be in Phila.
My car is either K-G or K-9 It is indistinct.

There is a tea at Roberta Bosley's on Sunday after-
noon for Rose McClendon. Wish you would come up. Also there is a
marvelous exhibit of pictures from Haiti at the Ainslie Galeries
677 Fifth Ave. Honest they are wonderful, Langston. So many fine
Negro subjects. I had just been trying to persuade Richard Reid
to stop whining for a while and go South and work some. He says
he has no sympathy for them so I desisted and left him to his
chase of John Barrymore etc.

You MUST promise to join me as soon as school
is out. It will be different this time, Langston. By the way, I
am going to send you something out of the first check. I have
wanted to so much, but I just couldnt before. I know that you
NEEDS. What I mean by it will be different, I will have a better
car ALL PAID FOR, and a better salary. Also, you MUST promise to
ask ME first when you get strapped.

Hope I see you old dear. I must write to Miss
Settles when I get South. So rushed now.

Zora Hurston
2744 Amelia St
New Orleans, La.

Mr. Langston Hughes
Lincoln University
Pennsylvania.

2744 Amelia St. New Orleans, La. October 15, 1928.

Dear Langston,

Things are ok by me. How is it with you? The conjure bus-
iness is looking up, and I expect little more than duplication from now
on. I am going out to Bogaloosa tomorrow to see a supposedly great one,
and hope that he is not too hard to deal with. They certainly charge
steeply. I have gotten everyone I have met yet, but they tell me he is
enormously rich.

I stayed a week at 834 Orleans, but the bed bugs routed
me, so I moved up here. It is better anyway for I am sort of in the
lap of the activities. Algiers, is as dead as Babylon. It seems that po-
lice activities is responsible for the removal. Oh, I have a marvelous
dance ritual from the ceremony of death. Lots of thrilling things to
make your heart glad.

shall have a check for you in a few days. Since I have
been over in N.O. I am meeting more interesting people and having a
thrill reading poetry. One man who heard me reading a few in a drug-
store at 3000 S. Rampart came to my house yesterday morning and asked
me to let him read the books, and I did. I knew he would never be able
to buy one. I am giving a copy of each to the town library at Eatonville
Fla. and one to the lib. of Robert Hungerford Industrial School at the
same place

You are very accurate in your observations. I found the add

resses a lot of help. Particularly the drugstore on Rampart. I got a
splendid "experience" from the old man at 834 too. Thanks a lot.

I heard that Gwen Bennet was in Florida. Is that true? It puts
me on the wonder if she is. Hope you got your folk-lore journals. I got
mine and noted A.H. Fausett's contrib. I am exultant for they are set
down just as I thought they would be. I note also children's games from
Cincinnati, with the Negro games all wrong, for which I give thanks.

I know that the paragraphs in this letter violate all rules,
but what difference does it make. You will understand me.

has been acceptable to His Majesty, the man in the gutter before, and I laugh if you will, but that man in the gutter is the god-maker, the creator of everything that lasts. That could be a long theme, but your intelligence saves me the trouble, and you the boredom. Why not think it over?

Got plenty story material for the book. This is a miscellaneous paragraph, look for anything. Saw the great "doctor" Redmond at Boga-lusa. Income over 500 a day. He is a rusty black nigger with a piece of greasy flannel around his neck. Never allows the patient to tell him one symptom. Looks at them and prescribes. Clientele mostly white. I could have married the old scalawag. Claims to cure appendicitis by making the patient pass it or bringing it out of the throat. Gettiny plenty letters for book, and about enough p>kx children's games, and enough work songs. Of course, not letting anything slip by me willingly. Have not heard from Locke, tho I wrote him some weeks ago.

Luck and love,

1663 Evergreen Ave.
Jacksonville, Fla.

April 3, 1929.

Dear Langston,

Say! isn't Wallie getting away? I think its just too wonderful.
I am so proud and thrilled.

I had a letter from Locke and he told me that Jessie Fauset was
getting married and he got off one of the best wise cracks of the
year. If Jessie ever hears of it he will have to live abroad for a long
time.

Do let me hear from you. I get worried sometimes and feel that
you have gotten so intellectual that you are forgetting a low-brow
like me. I want you to hurry and come out of that knowledge works and
be human. But maybe the business of graduating has you very occupied.
I can understand that. But at that I think Lincoln is presumptious
to give YOU an exam.

Locke is utterly disgusted at Wallie.

I am sitting down to sum up and I am getting on very well at
it. I feel full of my subjects, but there are going to be lots of
hollering as various corns get stepped on.

My last night in New Orleans I spoke on poetry at New Orleans
College and read some poems from WEARY BLUES and read FINE CLOTHES
clean through. My they liked it. One old maid matron of the dormitory
nearly finished dying when I read Saturday night, but the boys et it
up. I read 6 poems from Helene Johnson too, and talked a little on
poetic form.

I shall go down state as soon as I get all the material on the
African princess who married a white man out beyond the three mile
limit and lived on an island off Jacksonville. I am photographing a
that carved house at Fernandina, too.

the Dixie Highway, as fine a piece of road engineering as there is in the U.S.A. Honest Langston it is a good buy. You know that everybody down here is dead broke, dont you? They have never allowed a Negro to buy on the Dixie or the Indian river before and they are not doing it now, except in this case. We dont need to worry about the white folks as the big wigs in the city have held a meeting and decided to sell to me. I can, if I choose sell to any of my friends so long as they belong to my social caste. They want no niggers in that neighborhood and were quite frank about it, but they said that, they were agreeably surprised in me, and the last man of the white business world tip their hats to me, treat me with the utmost respect. They are all yankees anyway. They say they do not mind Negroes having the plat, but NO niggers. They do not want the property to lose its future value. I mean the adjacent property. They said, that we can have a R.R. station there if we ask the R.R.co and have a little town of our own. I think that would be dandy. I introduced them to you thru "Fine Clothes" and they had it at the Chamber of Commerce meeting, and you have been discussed at the P.O. for two weeks. The man who wants to sell is a bootlegger and the Govt. has been hard on him and he is about to lose everything. I think I can get it cheaper than 4000 if I can raise the down payment. That is what he is eager to get. What do you think? I spoke at length of the white attitude because I know you would wonder about it at once. It looks absolutely safe to me, and we could have lots of fun and a lovely place to retire and write on occasion. I am not asking you in a snide way to help on the payment, I really want your opinion. Thats all. I think Aleilia Walker might like the idea dont you? We dont need too many. No big society stuff. Just a neat little colony of kindred souls. I'm crazy to build me a house that looks something like an African king's menage. More elaborate of course.

Love and luck, honey.

Box 42
Sta. Lemon City
Miami, Fla.

Aug. 17, 1929.

Dear Langston,

I am here where it is very nice and I am getting a lot of work
done. Wish you OK here because such good likker can be had. I know that
will upset for a week but calm yourself. I shall bring you some if life
lasts.

So much improved in health. Glad the doctors had made an error
about my stomach. I am getting on fine now and eating plenty.

Wired G. my new address. That stenog. is so slow. I wanted her and
you to see things, but you will have to wait a week perhaps. She has pro m-
ised me so many times that I am afraid to say untill I get the stuff in
my hands.

Got some new ideas for skits. One is OK "White Folks Love." X
Negro will first try to win the girl by making dicty love, but will fail.
then he gets real common and is a knockout. Another is "School" I know
that has been done, but not the way I am going to do it. I have something
startling in that connection. Another "Cock Robin gets killed in Niggerx
Town." A travesty on Who killed Cock Robin.? A R.R. track-gang skit and
the Jook scenes and the coach scene from my play "Color struck." Dont you
think that was the best part of the play? Do you think it could be made
a good skit separated from the rest? Thus I have about seven skits about
ready. How many could you get together? I am now writing music, and if I
do say so, I have one or two snappy airs. I am trying to get the whole
together so that you can have a copy and make your additions ad lib.

Love old thing.

Box 815, Eau Gallie, Fla.

Dear Pal,

I am glad that you saw the other material in New York for I was very eager to know what you thought about it. I am glad you like. About AL, he approves anything that has already been approved.

I told him nothing but asked him about editing the material, and I only asked him tjat because G. said she wanted me to be more cordial to him. I have only written him about four times since I have been down. But thanks for the tip. I shall be even more reticent from now on. I'll keep my big mouf shut.

No, never would I speak of any of the things you tell me. I know they are for me only and I am most discreet. I know that you tell me things to guard my relations with G.

I am trying to get some more children's games all the time. I dont seem to find anymore now. I do hope that I get some down around Miami.

Perhaps there are some slight Negro-Indian admixture in the state, but I doubtd it. The Seminoles are singularly pure. I think they say that there never has been but one half-breed in the Everglades. I hope to see a great deal of them when I go down. I have had them in mind ever since I came to the state

I shall write her every week now, I mean Godmother. Yes, I do think that she is wonderful. Could you broach the magazine article to her? I couldnt very easily. But there is plenty of time for that.

Do you want to look over wha I have on our show? Lets call it "JOOK" that is the word for baudy house in its general sense. It is the club house on these saw-mills and terpentine stills. Then we can bring in all of the songs and gags I have. Shall we work on it at once? I am willing if you are. I know that G. would never consent for me to do so, so you will have to take it all in your name. Man, I got some jook songs! I am getting enough for a volume by itself and I am pushing it close. The folks call playing and singing those songs "jooking". For ex. "Man, he sho kin jook."

I am headed for Miami and some more conjure. Start tomorrow or Sunday. Shall write you from here. Also shall run up to New Orleans on my return and do as you suggest about the lives of some of the doctors.

Yes, I shall fix up the material at once and send it on to New York out of my way. I am eager to do that too. It is a weight upon my mind. I shall hold back the conjure untill I get the other from Miami and put it all together.

NO, I havent told G. that I sent you the material. I wanted to get your reaction before sending it to her. I have been full of fear and trembling for what I have done. I feel that I have been honest, but the question was, how will it strike others. I started out to manufacture some conclusions and found that I didnt have to. There is too much that is true to say.

I shall get a typist as soon as possible and get it off, after I have classified it. I made no attempt to do that at first. I wrote in bits as I worked it out and felt that you would see that.

Poor Wallie, I can sympathize with him. How are the Bontempts getting on? And the Douglases? I am glad Aaron is getting on well. He deserves it. I hope Wallie does something else fine. I am eager to see them all. I hope that I can come up Thanksgiving or Xmas.

Langston, really, MUIATTO is superb. I have read it about the hundredth time and it is so good. So truly negroid. Little bits of drama thrust in without notice. Pictures. I dont want to be sloppy, but the tears come every time I read "MOTHER TO SON". You are a great poet. May I dedicate one of my volumes to you? I hope they will rate it.

Give me a picture, old thing. I'd like to gaze upon thy pan.

Let me hear when you have time.