Living Like White Folks: Langston Hughes in Carmel

Wednesday, September 30, 2026

7:00 PM, Carpenter Hall at Sunset Center, Carmel

Henry Meade Williams Local History Lecture

Living Like White Folks: Langston Hughes in Carmel, with Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts, poet and President Emeritus, Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation

Long before he came to Carmel, Langston Hughes had established himself as one of America's most distinctive literary voices, moving readers with poetry that gave expression to both the personal and the universal. His time in Carmel added a new chapter to that story. Navigating a community both welcoming and hostile, Hughes confronted questions of race, identity, and belonging that were so important throughout his life. This program explores his Carmel experience and how it informed his writing and continues to speak so movingly to readers today.

Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts serves as a trustee and as president emeritus of the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation. He also coordinates the Foundation's annual Prize for Poetry and serves as a tour docent. He coordinated the National Endowment for the Arts "The Big Read: The Poetry of Robinson Jeffers," during which he read and performed Jeffers's poetry at venues throughout Monterey County. Ruchowitz-Roberts is the author of White Fire, a collection of poems; co-editor and co-translator of two works from the Telugu, Sudha (Nectar) by Chalam and The Selected Verses of Vemana, both of which have been accepted into UNESCO's Collection of Representative Works: Indian Series; and co-author of Bowing to Receive the Mountain: Essays by Lin Jensen and Poetry by Elliot Roberts. His poetry has also appeared in various journals and anthologies. A professor emeritus at Monterey Peninsula College--where he taught composition, literature, public speaking, and humanities for 32 years, Ruchowitz-Roberts also served for more than two decades as Poet-in-the-Schools for the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts.