There Was a Party for Langston

The motif of the library is a repeating image throughout the book, and it helps frame the book’s three themes. It conveys Artistic Inspiration and Its Influence because “all the best word makers [a]re there” at the library (28). Various books listen in on the party, and all the book authors whom the text illustrates are Langston’s various “word-children,” showing the effect of his legacy.

This motif helps emphasize the importance of Learning About Cultural History and Heritage because it is specifically identified at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a leading institution that preserves and celebrates African American and African identities and experiences. Everyone at the party is gathered to celebrate the opening of the Langston Hughes Auditorium; Langston is an important figure within the genre 20th-century poetry broadly and was a central voice in Harlem and Black life at the time.

Finally, the motif of the library thematically contributes to The Importance of Black Joy: It is the site of a “party,” a “jam in Harlem” (7). People are not gathered somberly but rather in celebration of a cultural icon.