Langston Hughes in the Soviet Union: The African-American Poet's Travels Throughout the USSR and the Radicalization of His Work

This lecture will touch upon Langston Hughes's role in the Harlem Renaissance, a period where black American writers, poets, novelists, playwrights and other artists began focusing on the black experience in America, through his trip to Moscow and Soviet Central Asia, where he was deeply impressed by the Soviet model of racial equality. As African-Americans fought against lynching and lived under legal racial discrimination at home in the United States, the poet's Soviet experiences profoundly impacted his already left-leaning views, radicalizing his poetry. Speaker Jermaine Lloyd is a Master's student in the History Department (specialization: Social Movements and Political Parties) at Moscow State University Lomonosov. His research topic is «The African-American Question in the Policy of the Communist International, 1919-1943.» He earned a Bachelor's in Political Science from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Inspired by Langston Hughes, he came to Russia do the Trans-Siberian Railway and has lived here since 2004.