The catalog of an exhibition in in the Leon Robbin Gallery of the Georgetown University Library, August 29-December 19, 2016. Toward the end of her life, Margaret Bonds (1913-1972) reflected on the day she discovered the poetry of Langston Hughes (1902-1967). It was in 1929, her first year as a music student at Northwestern "I was in this prejudiced university, this terribly prejudiced place…. I was looking in the basement of the Evanston Public Library where they had the poetry. I came in contact with this wonderful poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” and I’m sure it helped my feelings of security. Because in that poem he tells how great the black man is. And if I had any misgivings, which I would have to have – here you are in a setup where the restaurants won’t serve you and you’re going to college, you’re sacrificing, trying to get through school – and I know that poem helped save me." Hughes wrote “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” in 1920 while traveling on a train from Cleveland to Mexico. It was published one year later in the literary journal Crisis, and again in 1926 as part of his first poetry collection The Weary Blues. This was the book Bonds discovered. Its musical title spoke to her right away, and over the next four decades she and Hughes forged an artistic bond based on mutual respect, genuine affection and a shared enthusiasm for new creative challenges. This exhibition tracks the course of their musical friendship and the enduring legacy of their artistic collaborations.