GAY AND LESBIAN ATHEISTS AND HUMANISTS
P.O. Box 34635, Washington, DC 20043-4635
www.galah.org

April 7, 2002

Contact person: Tom Klem
treasurer@galah.org
www.galah.org

LANGSTON HUGHES: GAY ATHEIST

This year's Black History Month and the centennial celebration of Langston Hughes' birth have focused attention on one of America's greatest poets and one of this country's most famous gay atheists.

This prolific writer was most famous for his poetry, though he also produced other works of fiction, essays, and libretti for opera. Hughes was the first African-American poet whose works inspired a literary society, one which still produces The Langston Hughes Review. Hughes also was a journalist and historian.

The efforts of freethinkers and queers to reclaim Hughes' entire legacy exemplifies a broader effort to make historical representations more accurate and inclusive. Taboos on the discussion of homosexuality and atheism in the past are starting to be critically examined just as similar taboos have been for the present, though many religious individuals and groups would prefer the taboos to remain in place.

Hughes provided one of the most eloquent descriptions of the nature of deities in a portion of his poem "Gods."

Yet the ivory gods,
And the ebony gods,
And the gods of diamond-jade,
Are only silly puppet gods
That people themselves
Have made.

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