Langston Hughes
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February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967
Poet/Playwright/Activist
Known as one of the literary leaders of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes is one of the greatest and most influential American poets. He was also a distinguished writer of plays and short stories.
The second of two children, Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, and raised in Kansas. His father was an educator and activist for black voting rights and his mother was a schoolteacher. His parents separated at an early age, and he was raised mostly by his grandmother, who instilled in him a sense of racial pride and dignity.
His love for writing began during high school, in Cleveland, Ohio, where he wrote for the school newspaper, and yearbook, in addition to his poetry. He later attended Columbia University in New York in 1921, and his career as a published poet began when The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP published his poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.”
Hughes left Columbia University due to the racially prejudicial treatment he received from the faculty, but the neighborhood of Harlem intrigued him, and he would eventually settle in that area, spending the majority of the rest of his life there, after graduating from Lincoln College in 1929.
Hughes’s writing depicted the lives of the working-class black Americans. His writing wanted to project an image of black pride and show that black lives included the same kind of diversity of drama, happiness, comedy, and creativity that makes up the American social mosaic.
Throughout the 30s, 40s, and 50s, Hughes would tour the world writing novels, short stories, poetry, and plays. He was also a frequent columnist for such publications as the Chicago Defender, and a guest lecturer at numerous colleges and universities.
In the 1960s, he was looked upon as an elder stateman of black literature, having influenced numerous contemporary writers. He made his transition in May of 1967. To this day, Langston Hughes’s poetry is still published and used in modern marketing campaigns. His most famous poems include “A Dream Deferred” and “I, Too, Am America.”