Langston Hughes

James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri.

He was the grandson Charles Henry Langston, who was the brother of John Mercer Langston, the first Black American to be elected to public office in 1855.

His parents were divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico. A lonely child, he was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, eventually settling in Cleveland, Ohio. Langston started writing poetry in eight grade. Following graduation, he spent a year in Mexico and a year at Columbia University. His step father was concerned that Langston would not be able to earn a living as a writer, and paid his tuition at Columbia University on the condition that he enroll as an engineer. Langston dropped out after one year with a B+ average.

During the next few years, he held odd jobs as an assistant cook, launderer, and a busboy, and travelled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. His first published poem was also one of his most famous, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers", and it appeared in Brownie's Book. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. Hughes first book of poetry, "The Weary Blues", was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, "Not Without Laughter", won the Harmon gold medal for literature.

One of Hughes' finest essays appeared in the Nation in 1926, entitled "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain". It spoke of Black writers and poets, "who would surrender racial pride in the name of a false integration", where a talented Black writer would prefer to be considered a poet, not a Black poet, which to Hughes meant he subconsciously wanted to write like a white poet. Hughes argued, "no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself'. He wrote in this essay, "We younger Negro artists now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren't, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too... If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, as strong as we know how and we stand on the top of the mountain, free within ourselves."

Hughes wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his fascination with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing. In "The Weary Blues" he writes
"I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."

His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. (See other stories in blackhistory.com on this). Unlike other notable black poets of the period--Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen--Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.

Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer in May 22, 1967, in New York. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem, New York City, has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street was renamed "Langston Hughes Place."

A Selected Bibliography

Poetry

The Weary Blues (1926)
Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)
Dear Lovely Death (1931)
The Dream Keeper and Other Poems (1932)
Scottsboro Limited (1932)
Shakespeare in Harlem (1942)
Freedom's Plow (1943)
Fields of Wonder (1947)
One-Way Ticket (1949)
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Selected Poems (1959)
Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz (1961)
The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times (1967)
Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (1994) Edited by
Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel.

Prose

Not Without Laughter (1930)
The Ways of White Folks (1934)
The Big Sea (1940)
Simple Speaks His Mind (1950)
Laughing to Keep From Crying (1952)
Simple Takes a Wife (1953)
I Wonder as I Wander (1956)
Simple Stakes a Claim (1957)
The Langston Hughes Reader (1958)
Tambourines to Glory (1958)
Something in Common and Other Stories (1963)
Simple's Uncle Sam (1965)
Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest
Writings by Langston Hughes (1973) Edited by Faith Berry.
The Arna Bontemps-Langston Hughes Letters (1980)
Edited by Charles Nichols.
Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes
and Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964 (2001) Edited by Emily
Bernard.

Drama

Mule Bone (1930) With Zora Neale Hurston.
Little Ham (1935)
Mulatto (1935)
Soul Gone Home (1937)
Don't You Want to Be Free? (1938)
Simply Heavenly (1957)
Black Nativity (1961)
Five Plays by Langston Hughes (1963) Edited by Webster
Smalley.
The Political Plays of Langston Hughes (2000)
Introduction by Susan Duffy.
Collected Works of Langston Hughes, vol. 5: The Plays to
1942: Mulatto to The Sun Do Move (2000) Edited by Leslie
Catherine Sanders.

Suggested Reading
Langston Hughes a biography by Milton Meltzer 1968
Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks: A Reference Guide by R. Baxter Miller 1979
Langston Hughes, American Poet by Alice Walker 1974
Langston Hughes in the Hispanic World and Haiti by Edward J. Mullen 1977
The World of Langston Hughes Music: A Bibliography of Musical Settings of Langston Hughes' Works with Recordings and Other Listings by Kenneth Neilson 1982
Langston Hughes: Before and Beyond Harlem by Faith Berry 1983
Langston Hughes and the Blues by Steven C. Tracy 1988
Langston Hughes: Black Genius, A Critical Evaluation edited by Therman B. O'Daniel 1977
The Life of Langston Hughes: Vol. I 1902-194, Too, Sing America and Vol. II
1941-1967 Dream A World by Arnold Rampersad 1986