Renowned Poet Lauerate of African Americans, Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, and he was an influential figure in the 1920s literary movement often called the Harlem Renaissance. He was born to Carrie M. Langston and James N. Hughes, but was raised mainly by his mother and grandmother. After graduating high school, Langston spent the year in Mexico with his father whose sole mission was to discourage Langston from pursuing a career in writing. James Hughes interpreted success as how much you have in the bank, and so he failed to see how his son could be successful from being an author. However despite his father’s opposition and subsequent mother’s nonchalance, Langston went on to become a literary genius.
Langston returned to America after convincing his father that he will become a famous writer and enrolled at Columbia University in New York City. But after a year, Hughes left as he found the atmosphere unfriendly to a man of his color. In 1924, Hughes went to live with his mother in Washington D.C. Though these were tough times for Hughes, with racial tensions running high and his job as a hotel busboy paid very little, he was able to write many poems including “The Weary Blues” which won him first prize in 1925 in a literary competition sponsored by a magazine published by the National Urban League called Opportunity. This was just the beginning of his literary success. In 1926, Hughes caught the attention of a novelist and critic, Carl Van Vechten, who arranged publication of Hughes’s first volume of poetry, The Weary Blues which featured his signature poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”. Then there was Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927), Not without Laughter (1930), and about twenty plays including “Mulatto”, “Simply Heavenly”, and “Tambourines to Glory”. Hughes also had a column in the Chicago Defender called “Simple”. By 1953, Hughes had received many scholarships, awards, and honorary degrees including the Anisfield-Wolf Award for a book on improving race relations.
Langston Hughes died of complications after abdominal surgery related to prostate cancer on May 22, 1967. He was laid to rest at Schomburg Library of African American Culture in Harlem. Langston Hughes will forever be remembered by being the voice, mind, and spirit of African Americans and his ability to translate the joy, pain and love of blacks to the world.
Works Cited
Reyes, Angelita D. "MEMORY TELLING AND PRAISE-SINGING OF THE GENIUS OF LANGSTON HUGHES." Journal of African American History 94.2 (2009): 266. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web. 2 May 2011.
Lamb, Robert Paul. "A Little Yellow Bastard Boy": Paternal Rejection, Filial Insistence, and the Triumph of African American Cultural Aesthetics in Langston Hughes's "Mulatto." College Literature 35.2 (2008): 126-153. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 2 May 2011
Miller, R. Baxter. "The Collected Works of Langston Hughes." African American Review 38.4 (2004): 727. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web. 2 May 2011.
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