Tony Langston
Born
Detroit
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Entertainment writer and critic
EraLate teens to mid-1920s
Employer(s)The Chicago Defender and the Chicago Bee
Known forReviews of Black film, music and theater

Tony Langston was best known as "a tastemaker," an unusually insightful and persuasive African American arts critic who could tip "his readers off to a new wave of emerging Black talent" while also effectively arguing against racist tropes.[1] As entertainment editor for the Chicago Defender, the city's largest Black newspaper, Langston wrote on theater, film and music, reviewing everything from the rare talent of Bessie Smith to the outrageous racism of Birth of a Nation for as many as a million weekly readers.[1][2][3][4]

Writing largely from the late teens to the mid-1920s, Langston's work was wide-ranging, and inherently political when, for example, he expressed disgust with Ebony Film Corporation's debased depictions of African Americans and encouraged Chicago theater owners to ban the company's films.[5] In a 1920 Competitor magazine article, he joined the conversation about propriety, discussing both film codes and censorship boards, while also corresponding with George Johnson of the Lincoln Film Company.[6][7] In 1921, fellow culture writer WiIliam Henry Harrison, Jr. said, “Tony Langston is without question the most popular Colored theatrical writer not only in America but throughout the world ... [and the] highest paid writer in the history of Colored journalism.”[1]

Career

After leaving the Chicago Defender alongside several other writers amid false accusations of embezzlement, Langston spent a year or so at the Chicago Bee, only to leave his post there in 1926, to head the sales team at "Baby Calculator."[1] Langston, also a former actor, went on to become part owner of several theaters, and run his own agency, the Langston Slide and Advertising Co., in Chicago’s thriving Black neighborhood of Bronzeville.[1][8][9]

The Detroit-born critic came of age during the silent Black film-making period, and like fellow critic Lester Walton transitioned into writing about "talkies."[10]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Andrew Clayman (2022-02-22). "Baby Calculator Company, est. 1923". Made-in-Chicago Museum. Retrieved 2022-02-26.
  2. ↑ Glick (2011). "Mixed Messages: D.W. Griffith and the Black Press, 1916––1931". Film History. 23 (2): 174–195. doi:10.2979/filmhistory.23.2.174. JSTOR 10.2979/filmhistory.23.2.174. S2CID 145472735.
  3. ↑ Butters, Gerald R. (June 29, 2002). Black Manhood on the Silent Screen. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 9780700611973 – via Google Books.
  4. ↑ "American Blues Journalism, 1920s-70s: Part 2". music journalism history. 2019-11-11. Retrieved 2022-02-26.
  5. ↑ Lupack, Barbara (May 26, 2016). Early Race Filmmaking in America. Routledge. ISBN 9781317434252 – via Google Books.
  6. ↑ "Phylon". Atlanta University. June 29, 1975 – via Google Books.
  7. ↑ Everett, Anna (June 29, 2001). Returning the Gaze: A Genealogy of Black Film Criticism, 1909-1949. Duke University Press. ISBN 0822326140 – via Google Books.
  8. ↑ Harrison, William Henry Jr. (June 29, 1921). "Colored Girls and Boys' Inspiring United States History: And a Heart to Heart Talk about White Folks". Searle & Dressler Company, Incorporated – via Google Books.
  9. ↑ Tracy, Steven C. (2011-11-01). Writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-09342-5.
  10. ↑ Harrison (Jr.), William Henry (June 29, 1921). "Colored Girls and Boys' Inspiring United States History: And a Heart to Heart Talk about White Folks". Searle & Dressler Company, Incorporated – via Google Books.
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