[Unable to write an article for the Tuskegee Messenger because "my novel and earning a living have kept me bowed down for the last three years"; says his next novel, Not Without Laughter , will be published in August and "it's not about Harlem "; encloses poem "Alabama Earth (At Booker Washington's grave)".]

[Advises Moon to leave the poem ("Alabama Earth") "as is, please, sir!"; mutual friends Alain Locke and Zora Neale Hurston are mentioned.]

[Thanks Moon for sending copies of the Tuskegee Messenger; mentions Zora Neale Hurston and his mother [ Carrie Langston Hughes ]; says " New York 's full of down home teachers at school" and hopes "the novel [ Not Without Laughter ?] don't bore you."]

[lengthy and detailed recounting of his speaking at Chapel Hill , social arrangements in segregated North Carolina ("Refreshments later at a white soda fountain. . . . Nothing happened. It was just like New York."); mentions Contempo magazine, describes his reading before a large audience whom he expected would be hostile but were not (a policeman stood guard outside the building) after controversy surrounding his "Nigger Christ" poem ("Christ In Alabama", which commented on the Scottsboro case and was published in Contempo ); Hughes quotes a local sheriff as saying "he doesn't mind Christ being a bastard, but don't call him a nigger!". In a lengthy section marked "Not For Publication" Hughes describes two parties given in his honor (one hosted by Andrew Mellon's nephew) for after the reading where "Southern ladies present, too . . . gallons of home-brew were consumed" and adds that the tour is going well and plans to visit Birmingham . ]

[World premiere of his play Little Ham , which Hughes missed due to illness; thanks Moon for sending some papers and asks, "How come you can't buy an Amsterdam News nowhere in this town?" Also mentions illness of his mother.]

[Sends a clipping [not present] and says " Etta Motten 's description of Rio makes me want to go down there right away. Cleveland is just the same as ever, but I am glad to be back home and back to work again."]

[Invites the Moons to his home on December 10 to meet "the distinguished South African writer of colour, Peter Abrahams . . . I find Mr. Abrahams a charming fellow and a most interesting conversationalist"; in a handwritten postscript (green ink) Hughes adds, "Not a party--just a salon!"]

[Advance copies of I Wonder As I Wander are "due at any moment" and Moon will receive a copy from the publisher; Pictorial History of The Negro In America will appear November 18 "and we're all delighted Mollie [Moon's wife Molly] is helping on it. Crown [Publishers] finds her charming."]

[This signed copy was originally enclosed with a Hughes letter to Henry Lee Moon, May 1, 1930.]

[Describes the emotions of the child of a white father and a black mother; at the bottom of the page Hughes has written, "On this poem my play Mulatto is based."]

[Based on Hughes' 1947 poem Ballad of The Freedom Train , published in The New Republic (September 1947): 27.]