Hughes wrote “Vigilantes Knock at My Door” in an angry state, after immediate threats to his physical safety had subsided and he had returned to Carmel. Published in New Masses, it is a powerful indictment of the violence and intimidation being promoted by members of Americanist Right wing groups such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which was organized in Carmel in opposition to the emergence of the John Reed Club as a political presence.

Images from Langston Hughes Papers, Beinecke Library, Yale University