Kacey Cooper: 

Yeah, well in 1949 he [Hughes] visited Wilson during Negro History Week and we have some recollection about Saint Alphonsus being one of the churches, well schools back then, that he visited. I was wondering, and maybe we can start with Miss Harding: Can you recall the day of Langston Hughes's performance or anything else that you have recalled throughout your life of his performance at the school?

Anne Harding: 

Not really and be accurate. I remember that we were in the Catholic school, St. Alphonsus Catholic School. And in ‘49, Everlene? We were probably like third and fourth grade because we would have two classes in one room, and I think in ‘49 it had to be about third and fourth grade and you and I were probably in the third. Okay and we were lucky to, and fortunate to, get the people who came to visit our school. We had a number of I would just say cultural activities where the Nuns, the Oblate Sisters of Providence out of Baltimore who brought people such as Langston. I think, did Mariam Anderson come, Everlene? 

Everlene Cunningham: 

I want to say maybe it was Dorothy Mayner.

A.H. :

Maybe, I’m not sure. Some other important singer came too and Stephen Fletchit, I remember that because I didn’t know what that was and what it meant. I thought it was going to be somebody doing something. But they also brought up the Raleigh or the State orchestra to perform for the children at the school. We had a room called The Big Room and we would all go into that big room, I’m thinking Everlene. The other thing too, I think he [Hughes] visited our class. 

E.C. :

He did. That’s what I remember, I remember sitting in class. I knew who he was. At that time, they had already exposed us to his works of poetry and I knew who he was. They told us that he was a very important poet, a Negro Poet. And honestly, I can’t just remember. I wish I could remember specifics. I just remember sitting in class, he sat at the teacher's desk in front of us and, his looks, he looked just like the pictures that you see of him when he was, I guess, in early middle age, light brown skin, wavy hair and a mustache, and he talked to us but I don't remember what he said. He was rather soft-spoken and he just talked to us in a very friendly manner. But I don't remember what he said, I'm so sorry, I cannot recall what he talked about. I just don't know 

A.H. :

The other thing too, Everlene, and I tell this all the time, Everlene and I use to go to the library every day at the school and Everlene said to me, let's read every book in the library. And I bet she may have finished her goal. 

E.C. :

No, she did not.

A.H. :

But we were talking about the books that Ms. Jenkins had recommended for us. 

E.C. :

We wanted to see our names in the books, Our names were in a lot of books because those days they had a little card that went in the book. You had to put your name on it for so if you didn't bring the book back, they would know who had it. But when you brought the book back, they put the card back into the little sleeve in the back of the book. 

A.H. :

We also looked out-we made sure they put out book names-that they didn't take it away from us because we had it going for a while. My mom would pick me up in the afternoon, and they would put me across Pender Street right there, and I'd walked down and meet Everlene at the library in the afternoon. So, we were readers. 

"Freedom's Plow" opens up by describing how an unnamed man starts out with nothing, but eventually gains a community to build a world. “Freedom’s Plow” then segways into how colonial immigrants came to America to develop and execute the “American dream,” which carries various meanings as different positions (such as the slave men and slave masters) have differing ideas of what freedom actually is. However, Hughes reiterates that regardless of status, every American's goal is to gain freedom from oppressive forces, whether it be the British monarchy or enslavement. Through the allegorical use of a plow tilling the land and yielding crops, Hughes contextually compares American togetherness with successful productivity and production during World War II. Furthermore, Hughes compares the renowned words from White American democracy founders, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, with words from African American freedom fighters, Frederick Douglass and the enslaved Gospel Plow singers. Near the end of his poem, he ties together his ballad of this “plow” through the gospel spiritual ("Keep Your Hand on the Plow, Hold On") to show that everyone should be working towards the founding American democratic ideals despite their racial differences. Hughes finishes his poem by placing all of these ideas of freedom together and declaring that America will not fall to oppressive, non-liberating values.