Langston Hughes, the poet, was a Communist, right? Socialist?
If you could ask the late D.C. poet, Sterling A. Brown, he would laugh, take a drag on his pipe, and say — you are kidding asking that question, right?
Allegedly, an F.B.I. agent once asked Brown this on the record. Brown told him, if you are a Negro, have completed the 7th grade, and are against lynching, you are a Communist in America (paraphrase from an account by Lawrence P. Jackson in The Indignant Generation).
Brown followed that up with, he has finished the 8th grade and is against far more than just lynching and he is a Negro (Black). Brown, in the dozens, proved again with his retort that he was undefeated. I have no idea if this actually happened but it is funny.