One-way ticket

Author Langston Hughes American
 Illustrator Jacob Lawrence American
 Publisher Alfred Knopf Publishers

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 999


This first edition of Langston Hughes’s book of poetry features his poem "One-way ticket," and is powerfully illustrated by Jacob Lawrence. The two prominent contemporaries met in 1947, and one year later, Hughes commissioned Lawrence to illustrate this volume with six brush and ink drawings. The seminal poem speaks of the Great Migration and lynching and denounces racial segregation in the Southern United States. Lawrence had completed his renowned series of sixty narrative paintings in tempera known as The Migration Series six years earlier in 1941.

One-way ticket, Langston Hughes (American, 1902–1967)

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One-way ticket, Langston Hughes (American, 1902–1967)
One-way ticket, Langston Hughes (American, 1902–1967)
One-way ticket, Langston Hughes (American, 1902–1967)

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