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Langston Hughes

by Reggie from Raleigh

Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes

To me a hero is someone who can overcome trials and tribulations. A hero is brave enough to face the world and help others in a time of need. Langston Hughes is a good example of a hero because he helped his community and other young people in the world.

Langston Hughes was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance. He was born on February 1, 1902 and died May 22, 1967. This was the African American artistic movement in the 1920’s that celebrated black life and culture. Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. "His mother was a schoolteacher, and she also wrote poetry." His father, James Nathaniel Hughes, was a storekeeper. He had wanted to become a lawyer, but he wasn’t able to take the bar exam. "Hughes' parents separated and his mother moved from city to city in search of work." In his bad childhood, Hughes lived in Mexico. Hughes was one of the first black authors, who could support himself by his writings.

One of Hughes' best essays appeared in 1926, titled "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. To Hughes that 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."

"Hughes published more than 35 books, he was a creative writer. He hated long novels, narrative poems, as he once said. Although the Harlem Renaissance faded away during the Great Depression, its influence is seen in the writings of later authors, such as James Baldwin, who, however, criticized Hughes's poetic achievement. From the late 1940's through the 1950's Hughes revised under pressure his poems. Many of them became less tough."

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 has been renamed "Langston Hughes Place."

Page created on 3/24/2006 12:00:00 AM

Last edited 3/24/2006 12:00:00 AM

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