Langston Hughes on Trial | McCarthy | American Experience | PBS

In 1953, the author Langston Hughes was called before Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Subcommittee on Investigations to answer questions about Communist influences in his writing. The private, closed-door interrogation pitted Hughes against the Subcommittee’s chief counsel, Roy Cohn. We dramatized the actual hearing transcripts of Hughes’s testimony, made public 50 years later.

Learn more about MCCARTHY, including where to watch the documentary: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/mccarthy/

Illustrations: Jonell Joshua
Voice of Langston Hughes: Jericho Brown
Voice of Roy Cohn: Kyle Minshew