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Langston Hughes: Real People. Real Stories

Langston Hughes was an influential African American poet and writer born in 1902 in Missouri. He was exposed to literature from a young age by his mother. Hughes faced racial discrimination and adversity in his youth. He went on to become a prolific writer who used his work to advocate for social justice and equality. His poems and writings reflected the everyday struggles of African Americans and enjoyed worldwide popularity. Hughes dedicated his life and career to giving voice to oppressed peoples.

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Debora Azcurra
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14 views1 page

Langston Hughes: Real People. Real Stories

Langston Hughes was an influential African American poet and writer born in 1902 in Missouri. He was exposed to literature from a young age by his mother. Hughes faced racial discrimination and adversity in his youth. He went on to become a prolific writer who used his work to advocate for social justice and equality. His poems and writings reflected the everyday struggles of African Americans and enjoyed worldwide popularity. Hughes dedicated his life and career to giving voice to oppressed peoples.

Uploaded by

Debora Azcurra
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Real People. Real Stories.

Langston Hughes 1902 – 1967

Langston Hughes
L angston Hughes was born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. His
parents separated shortly after his birth. Early in his life,
Hughes’ mother fostered within him a love of the written and
spoken word by introducing him to books and taking him to
see plays.

When he was six his mother tried to enroll him in the


Harrison Street School near their home in Topeka. She REAL P EO P LE . REAL STORIES
.
was told that all African American children attended
Washington School, considerably farther away. Langston’s Hughes’ first published work, “The Negro Speaks of
mother argued for his enrollment at Harrison, and he was Rivers,” appeared in the NAACP magazine, The Crisis, in
eventually admitted. 1921. It became his signature poem. Hughes attended
When Hughes’ mother moved to Kansas City for work, Columbia University until he left in 1922 due to racial
she left him in the care of his elderly maternal grandmother prejudice within the institution.
in Lawrence. She wrapped young Langston in a shawl that Hughes wrote poetry that reflected the Harlem
had belonged to her first husband, Lewis Sheridan Leary, neighborhood that surrounded him. Although he was
who had been killed helping John Brown in the raid on the considered part of the Harlem Renaissance, he found
federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. himself at odds with those who gave birth to it. Hughes
Although he lived in several places throughout the believed they sometimes compromised the cultural identity
Midwest during his youth, Hughes always considered of African Americans in order to achieve social equality.
Kansas home. He once told a Lawrence audience, “I sort of Perhaps because of his own upbringing, Hughes had a
claim to be a Kansan because my whole childhood was strong connection to those in the lower social-economic
spent here in Lawrence and Topeka, and sometimes in strata and he dedicated his life to not only writing about
Kansas City.” their struggles, but to advocating for equality and justice.
He was called the “O. Henry of Harlem,” and the “Negro
Poet Laureate.”
The Negro Speaks of Rivers Hughes’ works – poetry, plays, short stories, novels,
I've known rivers: autobiographies, children’s books, and newspaper
the world and older than columns – enjoyed worldwide popularity and were
I've known rivers ancient as
human veins. translated into 12 languages. M. Bekker wrote in the
the flow of human blood in
the rivers. introduction to a Russian edition of Hughes’s work: “The
My soul has grown deep like
en dawns were young. poetry of Langston Hughes is simple and beautiful, like life
I bathed in the Euphrates wh
go and it lulled me to sleep. itself. On whatever subject the poet writes – love and
I built my hut near the Con
it.
raised the pyramids above tenderness, degradation and violence, joblessness and the
I looked upon the Nile and
sissippi when Abe Lincoln Lynch law, anger and the struggle for freedom – his poems
I heard the singing of the Mis
s, and I've seen its muddy are always imbued with the people’s sorrows and joys. For
went down to New Orlean
bosom turn all golden in the
sunset. this reason his poems go unfailingly to the heart of the
I've known rivers: common man, be he black or white, American or Russian.”
Ancient, dusky rivers.
Langston Hughes died in New York in 1967.
the rivers.
My soul has grown deep like
Autumn 2008 Reflections 5

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