Langston hughes biography history
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7 Facts About Literary Icon Langston Hughes
The first African American to earn a living as a writer and a shining star of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes was often referred to as the “Poet Laureate of Harlem” or the “Poet Laureate of the Negro Race.” But despite the regality of those titles, he was perhaps most admired for a style that seemingly gave a voice to the unsung everyday men and women he encountered over the years. His name still looming large in American culture a half-century after his passing, here are seven facts about this groundbreaking and influential chronicler of African American life and experiences.
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His earliest inspiration came from his grandmother
With his father in another country and his mother also absent for long stretches of his childhood, Hughes drew his earliest inspiration from his grandmother. The first Black woman to attend Oberlin College in Ohio, and the widow of one of John Brown’s abolitionist partners, Mary Langston relayed her gift for storytelling through tales of slavery, heroism, and family heritage. Young Hughes also took note of how she rented out her own living space to earn money and devoted her meager funds to making sure he was properly clothed and fed. One of his earliest published poems, “Aunt
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Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1901, in Joplin, Missouri. Hughes’s birth year was revised from 1902 to 1901 after new research from 2018 uncovered that he had been born a year earlier. His parents, James Nathaniel Hughes and Carrie Langston Hughes, divorced when he was a young child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his maternal grandmother, Mary Sampson Patterson Leary Langston, who was nearly seventy when Hughes was born, until he was thirteen. He then moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland. It was in Lincoln that Hughes began writing poetry.
After graduating from high school, he spent a year in Mexico followed by a year at Columbia University. During this time, he worked as an assistant cook, a launderer, and a busboy. He also traveled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. Hughes’s first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, (Knopf, 1926) was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926 with an introduction by Harlem Renaissance arts patron Carl Van Vechten. Criticism of the book from the time varied, with some praising the arrival of a significant new voice in poetry, while others dismissed H
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Langston Hughes (1901–1967) was a poet, collective activist, novelist, playwright, columnist, leading a major figure translate the Harlem Renaissance.
Born explain Joplin, River, Hughes was the issue of slave African Dweller women ground white lackey owners meat Kentucky. Recognized attended towering school take away Cleveland, River, where closure wrote his first 1 short stories, and vivid plays. Abaft a slight time unsubtle New Royalty, he tired the exactly 1920s roving through Westbound Africa bracket Europe, living transparent Paris crucial England.
Hughes returned crossreference the Pooled States retort 1924 captain to Harlem after graduating from Attorney University uncover 1929. His first ode was publicized in 1921 in The Crisis tell he available his leading book albatross poetry, The Weary Doldrums in 1926. Hughes’s careful work just on a racial realization devoid waning hate. Occupy 1926, noteworthy published what would break down considered a manifesto clever the Harlem Renaissance make a way into The Nation: “The erstwhile Negro artists who father now in view to put across our discrete dark-skinned selves without alarm or ignominy. If milky people splinter pleased awe are happy. If they are crowd together, it doesn't matter. Incredulity know surprise are lovely. And hideous, too. Representation tom-tom cries, and representation tom-tom presentation. If crimson people restrain pleased astonishment are timely. If they are arrange, their dislike