W. Jason Miller's "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"

W. Jason Miller is a Distinguished Professor and public scholar who acts as a cultural detective, unearthing the hidden connections that reshape American history. From discovering a lost recording of MLK’s first "I Have a Dream" speech to his latest revelation of the secret mentorship between Langston Hughes and Nina Simone, Miller bridges the gap between rigorous archival research and compelling public narrative.

He applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood: Nina Simone, Langston Hughes, and the Birth of Black Power, and reported the following:

Page 99 of my book Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood: Nina Simone, Langston Hughes, and the Birth of Black Power reads:

But before he left Lagos, Nigeria, just in case he had wondered how it truly felt to be a father of the bride, Hughes found himself trying to check out of room #203 of the Federal Palace Hotel owing more than five hundred dollars. The sum, accrued from various charges not covered by AMSAC, forced him to wire home and wait through an excruciating series of telegrams and transfers.

Readers opening to page 99 of the book, the last paragraph of chapter 6, would get an innate sense of the podcast-style storytelling and detail captured throughout the book. Flipping to this page, a reader would be intrigued to wonder exactly how Langston Hughes used a 1961 lunch invitation at John F. Kenedy’s White House to secure singer Nina Simone a honeymoon sponsored by the CIA.

December 1961 featured a series of American musicians traveling (all expenses paid by the CIA) to perform in Nigeria to unknowingly promote American capitalism at the height of the Cold War. I listened to several podcasts to shape the opening hook, storyline, and suspense of this entire chapter. The seven years of research anchoring the book comes through in the details of naming the exact hotel rooms used by Hughes and Simone. Flipping back just one page reveals why Nina could not stay even longer (as she wanted) on her first overseas trip. On New Year’s Eve of 1961, “The Amazing Nina Simone” played Carnegie Hall for the first time as an “added attraction,” joining fellow North Carolinians John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk as concert headliners.

Visit W. Jason Miller's website.

--Marshal Zeringue