LANGSTON HUGHES (1902-1967)
Langston Hughes was one of the most important writers and thinkers of
the Harlem Renaissance, which was the African American artistic movement in
the 1920s that celebrated black life and culture. Hughes's creative genius was
influenced by his life in New York City's Harlem, a primarily African American
neighborhood. His literary works helped shape American literature and politics.
Hughes, like others active in the Harlem Renaissance, had a strong sense of
racial pride. Through his poetry, he promoted equality, condemned racism and
injustice, and celebrated African American culture, humor, and spirituality.
James Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. His mother was a
school teacher, she also wrote poetry. His father, James Nathaniel Hughes, was
a storekeeper. Hughes's parents separated and his mother moved from city to
city in search of work. In his rootless childhood, Hughes lived in Mexico, Topeka,
Kansas, Colorado, Indiana and Buffalo. Part of his childhood Hughes lived with
his grandmother. At the age of 13 he moved back with his mother and her
second husband. Later the family moved to Cleveland, During this period Hughes
found the poems of Carl Sandburg, whose unrhymed free verse influenced him
deeply.
Hughes worked in menial jobs and wrote poems, which earned him
scholarship to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. According an anecdote,
Hughes was "discovered" by the poet Vachel Lindsay in Washington. Lindsay
was dining at the Wardman Park Hotel, where Hughes worked as a busboy, and
dropped his poems beside the Lindsay's dinner plate. Lindsay included several of
them in his poetry reading. It prompted interviews of the "busboy poet". Hughes
quit his job and moved to New York City.
In 1929 Hughes received his bachelor's degree. He was celebrated as a
young promising poet of the generation. Some of his famous poems include “I
too sing America” and “One Way Ticket” Hughes was one of the first black
authors, who could support himself by his writings and became a voice of the
Harlem Reniassance
adapted fromhttp://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/aa/Hughes and
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/lhughes.htm