“For contemporary Afro-American professionals and intellectuals, the Harlem of legend is at best a Utopian cultural myth.”

In 1976, the culture critic asked, “What is it that Americans share?”

“In so many ways and to so many people, Hughes was 'the Negro,' or at least 'Negro literature,' its public face, its spoken voice and cock­tail-party embodiment as well as the source of its printed texts.”