African American Poet and Writer: Langston Hughes

Who could think of the Harlem Renaissance and not remember Langston Hughes? The poet, columnist, playwright, essayist and novelist whose name came to be associated intimately with Harlem was born James Mercer Langston Hughes on February 1, 1902 at Joplin, Missouri to James Nathaniel and Carrie Hughes. At a young age, his parents divorced and he came to live with his grandmother Mary Langston until the age of thirteen. While there, his grandmother introduced him to the world of story telling in the Black American tradition. It was however only until he rejoined his mother in Lincoln, Illinois that he began to try his hand at poetry.

After graduating from high school in Cleveland, Ohio, he left to visit his father for a brief time in Mexico, trying to persuade him to finance his college education. After Mexico, he enrolled at Columbia University and took up engineering according to his father's wish. As a student, Hughes became privy to the racism within the school and decided to leave only after one year of study. It was also clear from then on that although Hughes was not a bad student, engineering was not his primary interest.

After his brief academic stint, Hughes began taking on odd jobs, and even went on to be a seaman for some time. It was however as a busboy that he came to meet Vachel Lindsay who expressed admiration for Hughes' literary attempts. In 1924, he published The Weary Blues, his first collection of poetry. It was however, Not Without Laughter, his first novel that gained for him critical acclaim, winning a Harmon Gold Medal.

Although Hughes never finished his education in Columbia, He eventually graduated from Lincoln University in 1929 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1963, Howard University gave him an honorary doctorate degree.

As a writer, he was greatly influenced by Whitman, Dunbar and Sandburg, contributing much to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. But Hughes was also distinct in his style and purpose. At a time when social equality was the clamor, Hughes capitalized on social and racial consciousness. From the time his grandmother gave him a taste of Black culture until his adulthood, Hughes became extremely proud of his racial heritage. In fact he could not comprehend why people like his father disliked being Black.

In his literary works, he has become particularly known for his vivid, perceptive accounts of everything that is African American. Hughes wrote about the African American life in all its struggles and joys and about the real African American in all his strengths, weaknesses, humor and bravery. This was what he wanted people to read, the rich and real culture of the American Blacks. Undeniably his work came to be a sterling example of genuine pride in identity and culture.

Hughes was a prolific writer and by the time of his death in 1967 at the age of sixty-five of complications from prostate cancer in, he left an enduring legacy with countless works in prose and poetry.