Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes entered the world on the 1st of February 1901, in Joplin, Missouri. His family tree held deep roots of contradiction and struggle. Both paternal great-grandmothers were enslaved Africans while their husbands were white slave owners in Kentucky. One ancestor was Sam Clay, a Scottish-American whiskey distiller from Henry County. Another putative ancestor was Silas Cushenberry, a slave trader from Clark County whom Hughes claimed was Jewish. The maternal line offered different history yet equal weight. Mary Patterson, his grandmother, carried African-American, French, English, and Native American blood. She married Lewis Sheridan Leary before attending Oberlin College as one of the first women to do so. In 1859, Leary joined John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in West Virginia where he died fatally wounded. Ten years later, Mary married Charles Henry Langston, an activist who worked for voting rights in Kansas. Their daughter Caroline became a schoolteacher and married James Nathaniel Hughes. They had two children including Langston himself.
After his father left the family soon after birth, young Langston grew up in Lawrence, Kansas under the care of his grandmother. Mary Patterson instilled racial pride through oral tradition and stories of activism. He recalled her words: "Through my grandmother's stories life always moved heroically toward an end." Nobody ever cried in those tales; they worked, schemed, or fought. This upbringing shaped his lifelong identification with neglected black people. After his grandmother died, he lived with family friends James and Auntie Mary Reed for two years. Later he resided with his mother Carrie in Lincoln, Illinois. The family eventually moved to Cleveland, Ohio where he attended Central High School. There Helen Maria Chesnutt taught him and proved inspiring. His writing experiments began early when grammar school elected him class poet due to stereotypes about African Americans having rhythm. During high school he wrote for the newspaper and edited the yearbook while composing his first short stories and plays.
Hughes maintained a poor relationship with his father whom he seldom saw as a child. In 1919 he briefly lived with his father in Mexico hoping to convince him to support plans for Columbia University. Hughes later stated that prior to arriving in Mexico he had been thinking about his father's strange dislike of his own people. His father hoped Hughes would study engineering abroad but did not support his desire to be a writer. They reached a compromise allowing Hughes to attend Columbia if he studied engineering. He left after more than a year once tuition was provided.
While at Columbia in 1921 Hughes managed to maintain a B+ grade average. He published poetry under a pen name in the Columbia Daily Spectator. Racial prejudice among students and teachers drove him away by 1922. He was denied a room on campus because he was black. Eventually he settled in Hartley Hall yet still suffered hostility from classmates who seemed hostile toward anyone outside the WASP category. He found himself attracted more to Harlem than his studies despite continuing to write poetry. Before serving aboard the S.S. Malone in 1923, Hughes worked various odd jobs. The ship took him to West Africa and Europe over six months. During this voyage he met Ferdinand Smith, a merchant seaman nine years older than himself. Smith influenced the poet to go to sea and they corresponded until Smith died in 1961. In Paris Hughes had a romance with Anne Marie Coussey, a British-educated African from a well-to-do Gold Coast family. She eventually married Hugh Wooding, a promising Trinidadian lawyer.
Returning to the United States in November 1924, Hughes lived with his mother in Washington D.C. After assorted odd jobs he gained white-collar employment as a personal assistant to historian Carter G. Woodson at the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Work demands limited writing time so Hughes quit to work as a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel. There he encountered poet Vachel Lindsay who shared some poems. Impressed, Lindsay publicized his discovery of a new black poet. The following year Hughes enrolled in Lincoln University where he joined the Omega Psi Phi fraternity. Amy Spingarn provided funds totaling three hundred dollars for his attendance. By November 1927 Charlotte Osgood Mason became his major patron.
Hughes's first poetry collection The Weary Blues appeared in 1926. His signature poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" was published earlier in June 1921 within The Crisis magazine. This poem dedicated to W.E.B. Du Bois became central to his early reputation. During the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s his life and work influenced contemporaries like Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Aaron Douglas. Except for McKay they worked together to create Fire!!, a short-lived magazine devoted to younger Negro artists.
Hughes and his fellows held different goals than the black middle class. They tried to depict the low-life in their art representing real lives of blacks in lower social-economic strata. Hughes wrote what would be considered their manifesto titled "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" published in The Nation in 1926. He declared: "The younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame." If white people were pleased they were glad; if not it did not matter. They knew they were beautiful and ugly too. The tom-tom cried and laughed regardless of approval from colored people or others. They built temples strong as known how standing free within themselves.
In spring 1927 Hughes traveled to Fisk University in Nashville and a Young Women's Christian Association convention in Texas. Charlotte Osgood Mason financially supported this trip hoping he document local folk culture. During travel he met Zora Neale Hurston on the 23rd of July 1927 at a Passenger Terminal in Mobile Alabama. Because Zora owned a car they decided to travel together documenting folk songs and behaviors. They visited Tuskegee Institute where they met Jessie Fauset posing before Booker T. Washington Sr.'s grave. Langston was asked to write an anthem for the institute called Alabama Earth which only appeared in print in 1928. Other encounters included relatives of Jean Toomer in Georgia visiting Cane plantation and Bessie Smith in Macon. Notes gathered during these meetings helped form his novel Not Without Laughter published in 1930.
Hughes became drawn to Communism as an alternative to segregated America. In 1932 he joined a group traveling to the Soviet Union to make a film depicting African American plight. He wrote English dialogue for the project though it never materialized. Instead he received opportunities to travel extensively through Central Asia usually closed to Westerners. There he met Robert Robinson, an African American living in Moscow unable to leave. In Turkmenistan Hughes befriended Hungarian author Arthur Koestler then a Communist given permission to visit.
As later noted in Koestler's autobiography Hughes invited forty other Black Americans originally to produce a Soviet film on Negro Life. Malcolm Cowley, Floyd Dell, and Chambers also participated. Soviets dropped the idea after their 1933 success recognizing the Soviet Union establishing an embassy in Moscow entailing toning down propaganda on racial segregation. Hughes and fellow Blacks remained uninformed about cancellation reasons but worked out explanations themselves. Hughes managed to travel to China, Japan, and Korea before returning home.
His poetry frequently appeared in CPUSA newspapers supporting initiatives like freeing the Scottsboro Boys. Partly showing support for Republicans during the Spanish Civil War Hughes traveled to Spain as correspondent for Baltimore Afro-American and various African-American papers. In August 1937 he broadcast live from Madrid alongside Harry Haywood and Walter Benjamin Garland. A Spanish Republican cultural magazine El Mono Azul featured translations of his poems. On the 29th of August 1937 Hughes wrote Roar, China! calling for resistance against Japanese invasion using China as metonym for global colour line. By November 1937 he departed Spain where El Mono Azul published farewell messages calling him great poet of black race.
Hughes joined organizations such as John Reed Clubs and League of Struggle for Negro Rights acting more as sympathizer than active participant. He signed a 1938 statement supporting Joseph Stalin's purges joining American Peace Mobilization in 1940 working to keep U.S. out of World War II. Initially opposing black involvement due to Jim Crow laws he later supported war effort believing service would aid civil rights struggle domestically.
Some academics believe Hughes was homosexual including codes within many poems similar to Walt Whitman who influenced him. His story Blessed Assurance dealt with father anger over son effeminacy and queerness. Cafe 3 A.M. opposed gay bashing by police while Poem for F.S. addressed friend Ferdinand Smith. Jean Blackwell Hutson former chief of Schomburg Center said: "He was always eluding marriage." She noted it wasn't until later years she became convinced he was homosexual. Sandra L. West author of Encyclopedia of Harlem Renaissance contends his love for black men evidenced through unpublished poems written to alleged lover named Beauty.
Biographer Aldrich argued Hughes remained closeted retaining respect from churches avoiding exacerbating precarious financial situation. Primary biographer Arnold Rampersad concluded author probably asexual passive in relationships. Under pressure Hughes governed sexual desires rare in normal adult male whether appetite normal impossible say. He understood Cullen and Locke offered nothing promising much for poetry or himself. Responses to Locke seemed teasing habit never lost showing lack rather than desire. Nor should one infer quickly held back by fear public exposure as homosexual compared friends. Of three men only ready indeed eager perceived disreputable.
Rampersad found some young dark-skinned men appealing sexually fascinating both artistic representations fiction especially life appearing finding virile young very dark complexion fascinated him. Both various artistic representations fiction especially life appeared finding young white men little sexual appeal.
Hughes's work enormously influenced foreign black writers including Jacques Roumain, Nicolás Guillén, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Aimé Césaire. Alongside French-speaking writers like René Maran Martinique and Léon Damas French Guiana South America works inspired Négritude movement France radical self-examination face European colonialism. Mercer Cook African-American scholar wrote: "His work had lot famous concept Negro soul feeling beginning develop." In addition social attitudes example important technical influence emphasis folk jazz rhythms basis poetry racial pride.
In 1930 his first novel Not Without Laughter won Harmon Gold Medal literature. Before widespread arts grants Hughes gained support private patrons two years prior publishing novel. Charlotte Mason generously supported writing process ending about time novel appeared protagonist boy named Sandy family dealing variety struggles race class relating one another. From mid-1950s to mid-1960s popularity among younger generation varied even reputation increased worldwide gradual advance toward integration many considered writings out date considering him racial chauvinist.
He found new writers James Baldwin lacking pride over-intellectual occasionally vulgar Langston misgivings because emphasis criminality frequent profanity. He said millions blacks never murder anyone rape get raped lust after white bodies cringe before white stupidity Uncle Tom crazy race off-balance frustration. Eagerly looked day gifted young writers go beyond clamor civil rights integration take genuine pride being black starkly absent best of them. Hughes wanted young black writers objective race scorn flee it understanding main points Black Power movement 1960s believed some supporters too angry work.
Hughes continued having admirers larger younger generation often helping offering advice introducing influential persons literature publishing communities including Alice Walker whom discovered looking upon hero example emulated own work Loften Mitchell observed: "Langston set tone standard brotherhood friendship cooperation follow." You never got from him I am Negro writer only I am Negro writer stopped thinking rest us.
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Common questions
When and where was James Mercer Langston Hughes born?
James Mercer Langston Hughes entered the world on the 1st of February 1901, in Joplin, Missouri. His family tree held deep roots of contradiction and struggle involving enslaved Africans and white slave owners.
What were the major events in Langston Hughes early life before college?
Langston Hughes grew up in Lawrence, Kansas under the care of his grandmother Mary Patterson who instilled racial pride through oral tradition. He later lived with family friends and resided with his mother Carrie in Lincoln, Illinois before attending Central High School in Cleveland, Ohio.
How did Langston Hughes experience racism at Columbia University?
Racial prejudice among students and teachers drove him away from Columbia by 1922 after he maintained a B+ grade average. He was denied a room on campus because he was black and suffered hostility from classmates outside the WASP category.
Who influenced Langston Hughes during his travels to West Africa and Europe?
During his voyage aboard the S.S. Malone in 1923, Hughes met Ferdinand Smith, a merchant seaman nine years older than himself. Smith influenced the poet to go to sea and they corresponded until Smith died in 1961.
When did Langston Hughes publish The Weary Blues and what was its significance?
Hughes's first poetry collection The Weary Blues appeared in 1926 following the publication of his signature poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers in June 1921 within The Crisis magazine. This work became central to his early reputation during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.
What political causes did Langston Hughes support later in life?
Langston Hughes joined organizations such as John Reed Clubs and League of Struggle for Negro Rights while supporting initiatives like freeing the Scottsboro Boys. He traveled to Spain as correspondent for Baltimore Afro-American in August 1937 and broadcast live from Madrid alongside Harry Haywood and Walter Benjamin Garland.