The Langston Hughes Center on The University of Kansas campus, Bailey Hall

An Academic Research and Educational Center

That is building upon the legacy and creative and intellectual insight of African American author, poet, playwright, folklorist and social critic, Langston Hughes.

The Langston Hughes Center (formerly the Langston Hughes Resource Center, founded in 1998) is an academic research and educational center that is building upon the legacy and creative and intellectual insight of African American author, poet, playwright, folklorist and social critic, Langston Hughes.  The Center coordinates, strengthens and develops teaching, research and outreach activities in African American Studies, and the study of race and culture in American society at the University of Kansas and throughout the region.  The Center, therefore, acts as a hub of critical examination of black culture, history, literature, politics, and social relations.  In addition, like Hughes himself, the Center has a Diasporic focus, promoting research and discussions on Africans in the Americas, the Caribbean and Africa.  Towards these ends the Langston Hughes Center, will regularly sponsor conferences, lectures, seminars and forums on a wide variety of topics; coordinating activities with, among other groups, the Kansas African Studies Center and the Center of Latin American Studies at KU.

NEH Summer Instittute


The Langston Hughes Center received a $180,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to conduct a June 2017 summer institute for high school teachers, entitled "Teaching the 'Long Hot Summer' of 1967 and Beyond."  The project will be led by Shawn Alexander, Clarence Lang, and John Rury.