This year marks the 75th anniversary of Dr. Hugh Gloster's founding of the College Language Association, and it also marks the 5th anniversary of this blog. Atlanta attracted a larger group this year, and among them I found many old friends, a few former students, and a few new scholars I'll be reading and watching in the coming years. Tayari Jones read form her fiction at the Langston Hughes Society luncheon. Pearl Cleage preached to the choir at the conference banquet, and the choir sang back enthusiastically. There really was a choir at the opening reception; the wonderful Spellman Chorus performed for us before being whisked off to sing with John Legend.
I was there for the second installment of our series of Gil Scott-Heron panels. Next up, the Langston Hughes Center at Queens Library in New York.
The conference opened and closed for me with Jerry Ward. After dinner over at the Gladys Knight restaurant we returned to the hotel and found Jerry at the bar with Howard and Kenton Rambsy, Candice Love Jackson and others. Once the conference was over, Jerry and I dined at a Chinese place across from the hotel, having made our way past prom-going teens in tuxes and gowns, who contrasted interestingly with the large group of teens at the hotel for a girl's volleyball tournament.
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