Langston Hughes was n’t just a famous Black poet , novelist , dramatist , and reporter who helped define New York City ’s Harlem Renaissance — he was alsoan activistthat reflected the multifaceted lives of the inglorious community of interests . Often called “ The People ’s Poet , ” he had an weird talent for depicting Black pleasure , sorrow , struggle , and victories in his writing .
Born in Joplin , Missouri , on February 1 , 1902 ( or 1901 , asrecent evidence suggests ) , Hughes was raised in Lawrence , Kansas , by his grannie , Mary Patterson Langston . An pedagog and emancipationist , she teach him the importance of loving himself despite society ’s racism ; as a result , Hughes never stopped fighting for systemic change and figuring out how he could expend his gift to produce a more just world . Here are eight things you should love about Langston Hughes .
1. Langston Hughes was a teenager when he wrote one of his most popular poems.
Langston Hugheswas just 17when he wrote “ The Negro Speaks of Rivers , ” one of hismost placeable poems . It was published the next yr in the June 1921 event ofThe Crisis , a cartridge founded byW.E.B. Du Boisas theofficial publicationof the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ) . In May 1941 , Hughes wrote Du Bois aheartfelt thank - you letterin honor of the twentieth anniversary of his first verse form being published .
2. He originally went to school for engineering.
Before Hughes ’s verse calling take off , he was an engineering science student at Columbia University in New York City . He attended the School of Mines , Engineering , and Chemistry in 1921 after his father convince him to choose a stable life history . WhileHughes performed well in schooland maintained a B+ norm , he dropped out after only spending a year in the program . He afterwards switched universities and majors to study English at Lincoln University in Oxford , Pennsylvania .
3. Hughes came from a family of activists.
Hughes get from an telling filiation of emancipationist and activists . His maternal gramps , Charles Henry Langston , urge for equal right , education , and suffrage in Ohio and Kansas for 30 years [ PDF ] . Hughes’sgreat - uncle , John Mercer Langston , was also an abolitionist , as well as an attorney , pol , and diplomatist who was one of the first Black men in the United Stateselected to public officewhen he was voted as township clerk of Brownhelm , Ohio , in 1855 . Later , he became the first bleak man elected to Congress from Virginia , where he served during the 51st Congress from 1889 to 1891 .
4. He was a pioneer of jazz poetry.
In 1958 , Hughes tell his poem “ The Weary Blues ” on Canada’sThe 7 O’Clock Showwith jazz complement from the Doug Parker Band . “ The Weary Blues ” was in the beginning publish inOpportunity , a powder magazine founded by theNational Urban League , and ended upwinning the prizefor upright verse form of the year in 1925 when Hughes was about 24 eld old .
It was one of the many poem he wrote that used a rhythm similar to that of jazz medicine . Hughes ’s jazz poetry — a stylehe open up — reflected the Black experience in many ways , andhe’d later say , “ [ Jazz ] to me is one of the implicit in expressions of Negro aliveness in America ; the interminable tom - tom beating in the Negro soul — the tom - tom of insurrection against weariness in a white public , a man of underpass trains , and body of work , work , figure out ; the tom - tom of delight and laughter , and pain swallowed in a smile . ”
5. Hughes went to the Soviet Union to make a movie about being Black in America.
Hughes and 21 other Black creatives traveled to the Soviet Union in 1932 to take part in a moving picture about Black biography in the American South calledBlack and White . Activist Louise Thompson — a longtime protagonist of Hughes — put the roll together and envisioned the task as being a more true characterization of sinister hardship than what Hollywood was capable of at the time .
The whole project shortly fell asunder , with some of the Black talent involved claiming that the Soviets axed the moving picture in ordering to “ groom favour with Washington , ” fit in toThe New York Times . Still , Hughes blamed the whole thing on simple originative differences , later writing of the issue : “ O , Movies . temperament . creative person . ambition . scenario . Directors , producers , consultant , actors , censors , changes , alteration , conferences . It ’s a complicated art — the picture palace . I ’m glad I write verse form . ”
6. He was also a reporter.
While most people fuck Hughes for his work as a poet , he was also a newsperson for 20 years , mostly writing for theChicago Defender , a long - running Black news outlet that started up in 1905 . In 1937 , hetraveled to Spainto cover the Spanish Civil War for theBaltimore Afro - Americannewspaper . During this time , he report the Black Americans who volunteered to campaign in Spain on the side ofthe leftist Republicangovernment as part of the International Brigades . ( Of those volunteer military personnel , the Abraham Lincoln Brigade includedBlack commander lead integrated troop . ) In addition to the clause , Hughes wrote two verse form called “ Postcard from Spain ” and “ Letter from Spain ” during his time covering the state of war .
7. He had a friendship—and then a falling out—with Zora Neale Hurston.
In 1925 , Hughes suffer and befriend another cardinal literary bod of theHarlem Renaissance , Zora Neale Hurston . Thecelebrated writer and folkloristwas attending Columbia University as a graduate scholarly person at the time , and the pair laterembarked on a tourof the Deep South together in 1927 .
While the two had quite a little of things in vulgar — including ashared patron , Charlotte Osgood Mason , who was a white socialite living in Manhattan — they finally had a falling out in 1931 , after work together onMule Bone , a playbased off Hurston’sshort story , “ The Bone of Contention . ” Reportedly , Hughes tried to bring out a version of it on stage in Pennsylvania without Hurston . at long last , the rift was never fully mended , and they rest estranged for age .
8. Hughes’s poems are still appearing in the media today.
Langston Hughes ’s work continues to exhort artists in all variety of medium today . American cartoonist Stephen Bentley , Maker of theHerb & Jamalcomic , included Hughes ’s poem “ Acceptance ” in the comedian ’s March 4 , 2010 strip and “ Still here ” in the March 27 , 2010 strip . prize - winning illustrator Afua Richardson , who ’s work out for Marvel , DC , and Image , also created comic book panels based on the poem “ The Negro Speaks of Rivers”for NPR in 2014 . She then used the illustrate panels tocreate a videothat include her original nontextual matter with an audio indication of the verse form .
The recentFresh Prince of Bel - Airreboot on Peacock also compensate court to Hughes , using his 100 - year - honest-to-god verse form , “ Mother to Son ” in a preview for the dramatized version of the situation comedy . The 1922 poem is scan by April Parker Jones ( Supergirl ) , who plays Will ’s ( Jabari Banks ) ma . The poem signifies the dark tone of the 2022 series and how it delves into the devastation of class water parting within the Black community and Black lifetime in an anti - dark America .
A version of this article was in the beginning published in 2022 and has been update for 2023 .
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