Langston Hughes - Tambourines to Glory

Langston Hughes noted that his 1958 novel, Tambourines to Glory, was meant to be an expose of the corruption of the many of the storefront churches and street corner preachers in Harlem whose sole purpose is to squeeze money from their followers and memberships for the aggrandizement of the founders - w sizable kickbacks to the police and to the downtown mobsters who control everything in Harlem. (The same kind of expose could have been written of produced about places of supposed worship anywhere - and have bee, see for ex the recent doc wild wild country.) what's so striking about Hughes's version is his great humanitarian sympathy even for the women behind the church, the straight-laced and devout
Essie and the cynical and self-interested Laura as well. The novel takes a turn toward the melodramatic at the end, to say the least, but even at the conclusion Hughes is interested in depicting the minds of the characters, giving them depth and dimension - esp Essie who at the end recognizes that in her silence she has been as guilty as Laura in being willing to rip off the naive and trusting worshippers. Essie vows going forward to use the church money to help the community - well and good, but can we trust her to do so esp as she sets up the church as a family enterprise, rife w nepotism? It seems the Hughes's final message is the it's best for the community to help itself, perhaps w aid from a representative government, rather than to depend on the church or other unregulated enterprises to fulfill the responsibilities that should rest w elected officials and representatives.


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