Mt. Vernon exhibit celebrates Langston Hughes

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Mt. Vernon exhibit celebrates Langston Hughes
01July2016September 2, 2019
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Mt. Vernon exhibit celebrates Langston Hughes

Author of new book recalls memories of family friend, poet and Civil Rights activist

A one day event at the Mackey Twins Art Gallery in Mount Vernon celebrated Langston Hughes, the prolific writer and social activist associated with the Harlem Renaissance and the political and social movements of the era.

Based around a new book, “Letters From Langston: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Red Scare and Beyond,” co­edited by Evelyn Louise Crawford and Dr. Mary Louise Patterson, the event on June 25 drew nearly 100 guests to the gallery which is in the home of identical twins Karen Mackey Witherspoon and Sharon Mackey McGee.

Patterson knew Hughes personally. “He was a wonderful storyteller; he’d talk for hours around the table,” says Patterson, a pediatrician by trade, who lives in Washington Heights. Patterson and Crawford are daughters of Hughes’ good friends, Louise Thompson Patterson and William L. Patterson and Evelyn Graves Crawford and Matt N. Crawford, respectively.