Langston Hughes Biography

Langston Hughes was born at the turn of the century. Hughes spent a rootless childhood moving from place to place with his mother who was separated from his father. During one year in high school, Hughes spent time with his father in Mexico, a light-skinned man who found an escape from racism in ranching. It was in that very high school that Hughes wrote his first poem after being elected "class poet" by his fellow classmates.

His father was James Nathaniel Hughes, a man who studied law but was unable to take the examination for the bar because he was black. His mother was Carrie Hughes, a woman who studied at the University of Kansas, in an ongoing struggle to earn a living outside of domestic labor. With aid from his father, Hughes attended Columbia University, but soon became disgusted with university life and immersed himself in his first love--the poetry, jazz and blues of Harlem.

Hughes supported himself in odd jobs like being a nightclub doorman while he traveled to places like West Africa, Italy, and Paris. During this time, Hughes wrote poems that earned him a scholarship to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. His first published poem was also one of his most famous, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers", which was published in The Brownie's Book.

Some of the poems by Hughes provide political protests or social criticism, while others depict poverty, prejudice, and hopelessness in the life of an African American in Harlem. Later, his poems, short plays, essays, and short stories appeared in the NAACP publication Crisis Magazine; they were also showcased in Opportunity Magazine as well as other publications. One of Hughes' finest essays appeared in print in 1926, entitled "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain."

His grandmother, Mary Sampson Patterson Leary Langston, was very prominent in the African American community of Lawrence, Kansas. Her first husband was killed at Harper's Ferry while fighting with John Brown; her second husband, Hughes' grandfather, was a prominent politician in Kansas during the Reconstruction period.

In 1921, Hughes held several jobs as a writer. He was an author, poet, playwright, song lyricist, and lecturer. Then, in 1921, he was an English teacher in Mexico. Hughes can also be accredited for being the founder of several community theatres in major cities including Harlem, Los Angeles, and Chicago.