I just stumbled across this article, which combines three wonderful items: Langston Hughes, the Chicago Defender, and ghosts. Hughes was a poet and writer who was blacklisted in the 1950s and the subject of much government and anti-communist organization concern because of his powerful voice and the respect he commanded. The Chicago Defender was one of the most important African American newspapers.

In a recent essay, John Pilger recalls the inspiring opposition of journalists, intellectuals and writers to rising waves of fascism, authoritarianism, repression, and censorship in the US and internationally during the 1930s. Today, in contrast, he writes, what we have are "silences filled with a consensus of propaganda that contaminates almost everything we read, see and hear." 

Author Lillian Hellman's plays have been pulled from the shelves of Orange County Public School libraries in Orlando, Florida, victims of House Bill 1069--a bill restricting everything from pronoun use to sex education and other issues deemed offensive by Florida conservatives.

So nice to see The Root's great slideshow of Black stars from the first half of the twentieth century, especially the brilliant Canada Lee and Harry Belafonte, both of whom deserve far more attention.

Great photo of Gypsy Rose Lee at the 1939 World's Fair in this photo spread on burlesque. Lee was a burlesque artist and so much more--a brilliant autodidact, she also wrote mysteries that capture a sense of the worlds we worked in. Check out her The G-String Murders.

Reading a new Wiki entry on Otto Preminger, described as "the classic author and director par excellence, master of precision and finesse, sometimes tyrannical sometimes engaging on his sets, fervent defender of democracy and always in conflict with established conventions," I couldn't help think about Vera Caspary's experiences with him.

The New Yorker just reviewed Paramount+'s new streaming series, Fellow Travelers. I'm so glad to see more media about the blacklist era, especially stories that explore the sordidness of anti-communists like Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn (who were front men for a dense network of gossips and homophobes). 

Barry Levitt writes about blacklisted writer Lillian Hellman's prescient The Children's Hour--a play that as he puts it, shows that the "grooming" narrative has deep roots in US culture. You can see the chilling trailer for William Wyler's film version here. 

You can read an excerpt from Donald Bogle's new book on Lena Horne in The Hollywood Reporter. And if you haven't already, read his groundbreaking Brown Sugar: Over One Hundred Years of America's Black Female Superstars as well.

Finally--a book about Hannah Weinstein, who hired and supported blacklisted writers like Joan LaCour Scott, Adrian Scott, and Ring Lardner, and introduced the costume drama craze to England that influenced a generation of filmmakers (and comedians, like Monty Python). See this article about Julia Bricklin's just published Red Sapphire.