My guest for episode 6 is Tim Lennon, executive director of the brand new nonprofit, Langston Seattle.

Langston is housed in the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, a beautiful facility in the Central District neighborhood. For the past 40 years, Langston Hughes (or LHPAI) has been run by the City of Seattle and has served as a performance and gathering space for black art and artists.

After 40 years, the city has decided to stop managing the programming that happens at Langston Hughes. Though the city will continue to manage the facility, it will hand over control of the programming to the community, through the nonprofit, Langston.

Tim, who just started in his role as the new director last month, is well suited to lead this effort. He has worked in the art world in a number of capacities, at Elliott Bay Book Company, the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, and most recently, as the director of the Vera Project, an all ages, youth arts organization. Tim has spent his career bringing people together around art and is deeply invested in the health and future of this city. I really wanted to pick his brain about how we build community through art and what he envisions for the future of Langston.

Resources:Langston’s website: https://www.langstonseattle.org/Langston Hughes African American Film Festival: https://www.langstonseattle.org/lhaaff/

***Intro/outro music, recorded with permission: "Joe Metro," by Blue Scholars.https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=Wz79goWQrYU***