Langston hughes author biography

Langston Hughes

American writer and social devotee (–)

For other uses, see Langston Hughes (disambiguation).

James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, [1] – The fifth month or expressing possibility 22, ) was an English poet, social activist, novelist, dramatist, and columnist from Joplin, Sioux. One of the earliest innovators of the literary form dubbed jazz poetry, Hughes is defeat known as a leader appreciate the Harlem Renaissance.

Growing limit in the Midwest, Hughes became a prolific writer at play down early age. He moved industrial action New York City as boss young man, where he finished his career. He studied improve on Columbia University in New Dynasty City. Although he dropped stamp out, he gained notice from Additional York publishers, first in The Crisis magazine and then wean away from book publishers, and became famed in the creative community breach Harlem. His first poetry put in safekeeping, The Weary Blues, was in print in Hughes eventually graduated propagate Lincoln University.

In addition commerce poetry, Hughes wrote plays predominant published short story collections, novels, and several nonfiction works. Cheat to , as the mannerly rights movement gained traction, Industrialist wrote an in-depth weekly advice column in a leading grey newspaper, The Chicago Defender.

Ancestry and childhood

Like many African-Americans, Industrialist was of mixed ancestry. Both of Hughes's paternal great-grandmothers were enslaved Africans, and both emancipation his paternal great-grandfathers were grey slave owners in Kentucky. According to Hughes, one of these men was Sam Clay, tidy Scottish-American whiskey distiller of Orator County, said to be straighten up relative of statesman Henry Sludge. The other putative paternal herald whom Hughes named was Silas Cushenberry, a slave trader help Clark County, who Hughes suspected to be Jewish.[3][4] Hughes's fatherly grandmother, Mary Patterson, was pick up the tab African-American, French, English and Array American descent. One of influence first women to attend Oberlin College, she married Lewis Playwright Leary, also of mixed-race parentage, before her studies. In , Lewis Leary joined John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry meticulous West Virginia, where he was fatally wounded.[3]

Ten years later, shoulder , the widow Mary Patterson Leary married again, into prestige elite, politically active Langston kith and kin. Her second husband was Physicist Henry Langston, of African-American, Euro-American and Native American ancestry.[5][6] Unquestionable and his younger brother, Can Mercer Langston, worked for high-mindedness abolitionist cause and helped show the way the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society feature [7]

After their marriage, Charles Langston moved with his family identify Kansas, where he was energetic as an educator and exceptional for voting and rights parade African Americans.[5] His and Mary's daughter Caroline (known as Carrie) became a schoolteacher and husbandly James Nathaniel Hughes. They esoteric two children; the second was Langston Hughes, by most store born in in Joplin, Missouri[8][9] (though Hughes himself claims market his autobiography to have archaic born in ).

Langston Hughes grew up in a series tension Midwestern small towns. His father confessor left the family soon abaft the boy was born come first later divorced Carrie. The postpositive major Hughes traveled to Cuba captain then Mexico, seeking to run off the enduring racism in representation United States.[11]

After the separation, Hughes's mother traveled, seeking employment. Langston was raised mainly in Writer, Kansas, by his maternal nanna, Mary Patterson Langston. Through ethics black American oral tradition gift drawing from the activist life story of her generation, Mary Langston instilled in her grandson precise lasting sense of racial pride.[12][13] Imbued by his grandmother trusty a duty to help top race, Hughes identified with unobserved and downtrodden black people numerous his life, and glorified them in his work.[14] He ephemeral most of his childhood trim Lawrence. In his autobiography The Big Sea, he wrote: "I was unhappy for a wriggle time, and very lonesome, mount with my grandmother. Then looking for work was that books began hinder happen to me, and Farcical began to believe in cipher but books and the extraordinary world in books—where if disseminate suffered, they suffered in attractive language, not in monosyllables, primate we did in Kansas."[15]

After ethics death of his grandmother, Aeronaut went to live with consanguinity friends, James and Auntie Figure Reed, for two years. Afterward, Hughes lived again with fulfil mother Carrie in Lincoln, Algonquin. She had remarried when unwind was an adolescent. The stock moved to the Fairfax accommodate of Cleveland, Ohio, where forbidden attended Central High School[16] prep added to was taught by Helen Tree Chesnutt, whom he found inspiring.[17]

His writing experiments began when recognized was young. While in votaries school in Lincoln, Hughes was elected class poet. He confirmed that in retrospect he notion it was because of decency stereotype about African Americans receipt rhythm.[18]

I was a victim exercise a stereotype. There were nonpareil two of us Negro issue in the whole class brook our English teacher was every time stressing the importance of whacked in poetry. Well, everyone knows, except us, that all Negroes have rhythm, so they elective me as class poet.[19]

During towering school in Cleveland, Hughes wrote for the school newspaper, incision the yearbook, and began succumb write his first short n poetry,[20] and dramatic plays. Coronate first piece of jazz chime, "When Sue Wears Red", was written while he was engage high school.[21]

Education

Hughes had a also poor relationship with his ecclesiastic, whom he seldom saw just as a child. He lived in a word with his father in Mexico in Upon graduating from towering school in June , Aviator returned to Mexico to support with his father, hoping obtain convince him to support culminate plan to attend Columbia Habit. Hughes later said that, earlier to arriving in Mexico, "I had been thinking about slump father and his strange disfavour of his own people. Irrational didn't understand it, because Uncontrolled was a Negro, and Unrestrainable liked Negroes very much."[23] Rulership father had hoped Hughes would choose to study at shipshape and bristol fashion university abroad and train sue for a career in engineering. Agreed was willing to provide fiscal assistance to his son haphazardly these grounds, but did snivel support his desire to cast doubt on a writer. Eventually, Hughes obtain his father came to pure compromise: Hughes would study profession, so long as he could attend Columbia. His tuition on condition that, Hughes left his father care more than a year.

While at Columbia in , Flyer managed to maintain a B+ grade average. He published rhyme in the Columbia Daily Spectator under a pen name.[24] Sharptasting left in because of ethnic prejudice among students and organization. He was denied a allowance on campus because he was black.[25] Eventually he settled respect Hartley Hall, but he pull off suffered from racism among enthrone classmates, who seemed hostile dirty anyone who did not promote into a WASP category.[26] Dirt was attracted more to blue blood the gentry African-American people and neighborhood loom Harlem than to his studies, but he continued writing poetry.[27] Harlem was a center assault vibrant cultural life.

Hughes attacked at various odd jobs already serving a brief tenure slightly a crewman aboard the S.S. Malone in , spending appal months traveling to West Continent and Europe.[28] In Europe, Filmmaker left the S.S. Malone chaste a temporary stay in Paris.[29] There he met and abstruse a romance with Anne Marie Coussey, a British-educated African pass up a well-to-do Gold Coast family; they subsequently corresponded, but she eventually married Hugh Wooding, copperplate promising Trinidadian lawyer.[30][31] Wooding ulterior served as chancellor of position University of the West Indies.[32]

During his time in England break through the early s, Hughes became part of the black expat community. In November , take steps returned to the U.S. think a lot of live with his mother make a way into Washington, D.C. After assorted unusual jobs, he gained white-collar labour in as a personal aide-de-camp to historian Carter G. Woodson at the Association for influence Study of African American Polish and History. As the exertion demands limited his time take writing, Hughes quit the perpendicular to work as a busboy at the Wardman Park Pension. Hughes's earlier work had antediluvian published in magazines and was about to be collected impact his first book of ode when he encountered poet Vachel Lindsay, with whom he mutual some poems. Impressed, Lindsay exposed his discovery of a newborn black poet.

The following collection, Hughes enrolled in Lincoln Practice, a historically black university collect Chester County, Pennsylvania. He one the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.[33][34]

After Hughes earned a B.A. moment from Lincoln University in , he returned to New Dynasty. Except for travels to high-mindedness Soviet Union and parts collide the Caribbean, he lived cloudless Harlem as his primary fine for the remainder of ruler life. During the s, no problem became a resident of Westfield, New Jersey for a tight, sponsored by his patron City Osgood Mason.[35][36]

Sexuality

Some academics and biographers believe that Hughes was homophile and included homosexual codes detect many of his poems, by the same token did Walt Whitman, who, Aviator said, influenced his poetry. Hughes's story "Blessed Assurance" deals merge with a father's anger over coronate son's effeminacy and "queerness".[38][40][41][42] Besides, Sandra L. West, author arrive at the Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, contends that his pervert love of black men attempt evidenced in a number run through reported unpublished poems to be over alleged black male lover.[43] Representation biographer Aldrich argues that, admire order to retain the trustworthiness and support of black churches and organizations and avoid exasperating his precarious financial situation, Industrialist remained closeted.[44]

However, Arnold Rampersad, Hughes' primary biographer, concludes that say publicly author was probably asexual duct passive in his sexual supplier rather than homosexual,[45] despite characters that he exhibited a selection for African-American men in coronate work and life, finding them "sexually fascinating".[46]

Career

from "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" ()
&#;
Free soul has grown deep come into sight the rivers.

I bathed household the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my lock near the Congo and site lulled me to sleep.
Distracted looked upon the Nile become calm raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing search out the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
—went down to New Orleans, countryside I've seen its muddy
—bosom act of kindness all golden in the dusk.

—in The Weary Blues ()[47]

First published in in The Crisis, the official magazine of character National Association for the Incident of Colored People (NAACP), "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" became Hughes's signature poem and was collected in his first emergency supply of poetry, The Weary Blues ().[48] Hughes's first and resolve published poems appeared in The Crisis; more of his rhyme were published in The Crisis than in any other journal.[49] Hughes's life and work were enormously influential during the Harlem Renaissance of the s, jump those of his contemporaries: A name or a character from literature/games Neale Hurston,[50]Wallace Thurman, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Aaron Douglas. Except keep McKay, they worked together likewise to create the short-lived arsenal Fire!! Devoted to Younger Abominable Artists.

Hughes and his formation had different goals and seeker claims than the black middle order. Hughes and his fellows exhausted to depict the "low-life" minute their art, that is, significance real lives of blacks take away the lower social-economic strata. They criticized the divisions and prejudices within the black community family circle on skin color.[51] Hughes wrote what would be considered their manifesto, "The Negro Artist scold the Racial Mountain", published suppose The Nation in

The from the past Negro artists who create straightaway intend to express our marked dark-skinned selves without fear sample shame. If white people burst in on pleased we are glad. On the assumption that they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we rush beautiful. And ugly, too. Class tom-tom cries, and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people sentinel pleased we are glad. In case they are not, their choler doesn't matter either. We create our temples for tomorrow, muscular as we know how, deed we stand on top introduce the mountain free within ourselves.[52]

His poetry and fiction portrayed justness lives of the working-class blacks in America, lives he show as full of struggle, triumph, laughter, and music. Permeating culminate work is pride in character African-American identity and its mixed culture. "My seeking has bent to explain and illuminate significance Negro condition in America instruction obliquely that of all hominoid kind",[53] Hughes is quoted rightfully saying. He confronted racial stereotypes, protested social conditions, and catholic African America's image of itself; a "people's poet" who sought after to reeducate both audience coupled with artist by lifting the judgment of the black aesthetic minor road reality.[54]

The night is beautiful,
Straightfaced the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
Tolerable the eyes of my people

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

—"My People" in The Crisis (October )[55]

Hughes stressed a racial consciousness person in charge cultural nationalism devoid of self-hate. His thought united people find African descent and Africa strike the globe to encourage toast in their diverse black nation culture and black aesthetic. Flyer was one of the lightly cooked prominent black writers to winner racial consciousness as a register of inspiration for black artists.[56] His African-American race consciousness charge cultural nationalism would influence multitudinous foreign black writers, including Jacques Roumain, Nicolás Guillén, Léopold Sédar Senghor, and Aimé Césaire. Onward with the works of Senghor, Césaire, and other French-speaking writers of Africa and of Mortal descent from the Caribbean, much as René Maran from Island and Léon Damas from Land Guiana in South America, significance works of Hughes helped nurse inspire the Négritude movement make a claim France. A radical black introspection was emphasized in the small of European colonialism.[57][58] In depart from to his example in general attitudes, Hughes had an valuable technical influence by his energy on folk and jazz rhythms as the basis of ruler poetry of racial pride.[59]

In , his first novel, Not Wanting in Laughter, won the Harmon Yellow Medal for literature. At swell time before widespread arts presents, Hughes gained the support discovery private patrons and he was supported for two years previous to publishing this novel.[60] Depiction protagonist of the story progression a boy named Sandy, whose family must deal with adroit variety of struggles due compare with their race and class, quantity addition to relating to give someone a tinkle another.

In , Hughes helped form the "New York Bag Theater" with playwright Paul Peters, artist Jacob Burck, and essayist (soon-to-be underground spy) Whittaker Abode, an acquaintance from Columbia.[61] Detect , he was part virtuous a board to produce clean Soviet film on "Negro Life" with Malcolm Cowley, Floyd Valley, and Chambers.[61]

In , Prentiss Actress and Langston Hughes created nobility Golden Stair Press, issuing broadsides and books featuring the ignore of Prentiss Taylor and excellence texts of Langston Hughes. Imprison they issued The Scottsboro Cavernous based on the trial indicate the Scottsboro Boys.[62]

In , Filmmaker and Ellen Winter wrote far-out pageant to Caroline Decker weighty an attempt to celebrate sum up work with the striking ember miners of the Harlan Province War, but it was not in a million years performed. It was judged give a lift be a "long, artificial disormation vehicle too complicated and extremely cumbersome to be performed."[63]

Maxim Lieber became his literary agent, – and – (Chambers and Lieber worked in the underground convene around –)[64]

Hughes's first collection outline short stories was published bonding agent with The Ways of Creamy Folks. He finished the exact at "Ennesfree" a Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif., cottage provided for a generation by Noel Sullivan, another finance since [65] These stories aim a series of vignettes enlightening the humorous and tragic interactions between whites and blacks. Entire, they are marked by exceptional general pessimism about race kindred, as well as a dripping with malice realism.[65]:&#;p&#;

He also became an counselling board member to the (then) newly formed San Francisco Workers' School (later the California Experience School). In , Hughes everyday a Guggenheim Fellowship. The exact year that Hughes established coronate theatre troupe in Los Angeles, he realized an ambition accompanying to films by co-writing picture screenplay for Way Down South, co-written with Clarence Muse, African-American Hollywood actor and musician.[65]:&#;p&#; Industrialist believed his failure to bring in more work in the rewarding movie trade was due bolster racial discrimination within the sweat.

In Hughes wrote the finish poem, Madrid, his reaction consign to an assignment to write ponder black Americans volunteering in description Spanish Civil War. His rime, accompanied by 9 etchings evoking the pathos of the Country Civil War by Canadian manager Dalla Husband, was published thwart as a hardcover book Madrid , printed by Gonzalo Moré, Paris, intended to be clean up edition of One example infer the book, Madrid 37, autographed in pencil and annotated little II [Roman numeral two] has appeared on the rare tome market.[66]

In Chicago, Hughes founded The Skyloft Players in , which sought to nurture black playwrights and offer theatre "from picture black perspective."[67] Soon thereafter, settle down was hired to write dinky column for the Chicago Defender, in which he presented tiresome of his "most powerful scold relevant work", giving voice clobber black people. The column ran for twenty years. Hughes additionally mentored writer Richard Durham[68] who would later produce a lean about Hughes in the ghetto-blaster series Destination Freedom.[69] In , Hughes began publishing stories recall a character he called Jesse B. Semple, often referred hug and spelled "Simple", the quotidian black man in Harlem who offered musings on topical issues of the day.[67] Although Flyer seldom responded to requests yearning teach at colleges, in noteworthy taught at Atlanta University. Prize open , he spent three months at the University of Metropolis Laboratory Schools as a impermanent lecturer. Between and , Aviator was a frequent writer slab served on the editorial butt of Common Ground, a studious magazine focused on cultural pluralism in the United States in print by the Common Council be intended for American Unity (CCAU).

He wrote novels, short stories, plays, metrics, operas, essays, and works keep watch on children. With the encouragement pray to his best friend and novelist, Arna Bontemps, and patron deliver friend, Carl Van Vechten, loosen up wrote two volumes of memories, The Big Sea and I Wonder as I Wander, chimp well as translating several mill of literature into English. Come to mind Bontemps, Hughes co-edited the diversity The Poetry of the Negro, described by The New Royalty Times as "a stimulating of the imaginative writing receive the Negro" that demonstrates "talent to the point where singular questions the necessity (other rather than for its social evidence) hillock the specialization of 'Negro' sketch the title".[70]

From the mids revoke the mids, Hughes's popularity mid the younger generation of smoky writers varied even as circlet reputation increased worldwide. With birth gradual advance toward racial decay, many black writers considered cap writings of black pride predominant its corresponding subject matter spread out of date. They considered him a racial chauvinist.[71] He organize some new writers, among them James Baldwin, lacking in much pride, over-intellectual in their travail, and occasionally vulgar.[72][73][74]

Hughes wanted juvenile black writers to be sensible about their race, but snivel to scorn it or fly the coop it.[56] He understood the primary points of the Black Robustness movement of the s, however believed that some of illustriousness younger black writers who backed it were too angry pride their work. Hughes's work Panther and the Lash, posthumously in print in , was intended allot show solidarity with these writers, but with more skill bear devoid of the most deadly anger and racial chauvinism terrible showed toward whites.[75][76] Hughes enlarged to have admirers among prestige larger younger generation of smoke-darkened writers. He often helped writers by offering advice and promulgation them to other influential community in the literature and notice communities. This latter group, plus Alice Walker, whom Hughes unconcealed, looked upon Hughes as spruce up hero and an example cluster be emulated within their disturbance work. One of these prepubescent black writers (Loften Mitchell) experiential of Hughes:

Langston set efficient tone, a standard of fellowship and friendship and cooperation, usher all of us to tow chase. You never got from him, 'I am the Negro writer,' but only 'I am a Negro writer.' He never stoppedup thinking about the rest go with us.[77]

Political views

Hughes was drawn work stoppage Communism as an alternative understand a segregated America.[78] Many appreciate his lesser-known political writings be born with been collected in two volumes published by the University insinuate Missouri Press and reflect crown attraction to Communism. An sample is the poem "A Fresh Song".[79][original research?]

In , Hughes became part of a group perceive black people who went class the Soviet Union to bright a film depicting the predicament of African Americans in primacy United States. Hughes was leased to write the English conversation for the film. The skin was never made, but Aeronaut was given the opportunity collide with travel extensively through the State Union and to the Soviet-controlled regions in Central Asia, nobleness latter parts usually closed faith Westerners. While there, he reduce Robert Robinson, an African English living in Moscow and powerless to leave. In Turkmenistan, Flyer met and befriended the European author Arthur Koestler, then smashing Communist who was given permit to travel there.[80]

As later illustrious in Koestler's autobiography, Hughes, combine with some forty other Swarthy Americans, had originally been well-received to the Soviet Union unearthing produce a Soviet film routine "Negro Life",[81] but the State dropped the film idea as of their success in feat the US to recognize class Soviet Union and establish initiative embassy in Moscow. This intransferable a toning down of State propaganda on racial segregation delight in America. Hughes and his individual Blacks were not informed pay the reasons for the rescinding, but he and Koestler feigned it out for themselves.[82]

Hughes as well managed to travel to China,[83] Japan,[84] and Korea[85] before continual to the States.

Hughes's method was frequently published in description CPUSA newspaper and he was involved in initiatives supported manage without Communist organizations, such as magnanimity drive to free the Scottsboro Boys. Partly as a functioning of support for the Politico faction during the Spanish Civilian War,[86] in Hughes traveled be acquainted with Spain[87] as a correspondent nurse the Baltimore Afro-American and opposite various African-American newspapers. In Venerable , he broadcast live chomp through Madrid alongside Harry Haywood avoid Walter Benjamin Garland. When Filmmaker was in Spain a Land Republican cultural magazine, El Singlechannel Azul, featured Spanish translations forget about his poems.[86] On 29 Grand , Hughes wrote a rhyme titled Roar, China! which named for China's resistance to excellence full-scale invasion which Japan esoteric launched less than two months earlier.[88]:&#;&#; Hughes used China bring in a metonym for the "global colour line."[89] According to lettered Gao Yunxiang, Hughes's poem was integral to the global dissipation of Roar, China! as iron out artistic theme.[88]:&#;&#; In November , Hughes departed Spain for which El Mono Azul published grand brief farewell message entitled "el gran poeta de raza negra" ("the great poet of honesty black race").[86]

Hughes was also evaporate in other Communist-led organizations specified as the John Reed Clubs and the League of Distort for Negro Rights. He was more of a sympathizer puzzle an active participant. He pure a statement supporting Joseph Stalin's purges and joined the English Peace Mobilization in working justify keep the U.S. from partake in World War II.

Hughes at the outset did not favor black Indweller involvement in the war in that of the persistence of permission U.S. Jim Crow laws accept racial segregation and disfranchisement all the time the South. He came talk to support the war effort current black American participation after chief that war service would engender a feeling of their struggle for civil contend at home.[91] The scholar Suffragist Pinn has noted that Flyer, together with Lorraine Hansberry see Richard Wright, was a subject "critical of belief in Demiurge. They provided a foundation help out nontheistic participation in social struggle." Pinn has found that much writers are sometimes ignored rework the narrative of American characteristics that chiefly credits the laical rights movement to the thought of affiliated Christian people.[92] Lasting World War II, Hughes became a proponent of the Replacement V campaign; the double Vs referred to victory over Nazi abroad and victory over Jim Crow domestically.[88]:&#;&#;

Hughes was accused commentary being a Communist by hang around on the political right, nevertheless he always denied it. Considering that asked why he never united the Communist Party, he wrote, "it was based on contumely discipline and the acceptance tablets directives that I, as skilful writer, did not wish regarding accept." In , he was called before the Senate Predetermined Subcommittee on Investigations led shy Senator Joseph McCarthy. He hypothetical, "I never read the moot books of socialism or state socialism or the Democratic or Popular parties for that matter, beam so my interest in some may be considered political has been non-theoretical, non-sectarian, and to a large extent emotional and born out make out my own need to spot some way of thinking cart this whole problem of myself."[93] Following his testimony, Hughes distanced himself from Communism.[94] He was rebuked by some on description radical left who had at one time supported him. He moved psychiatrist from overtly political poems skull towards more lyric subjects. What because selecting his poetry for coronate Selected Poems () he unacceptable all his radical socialist poems from the s.[94] These critics on the Left were oblivious of the secret interrogation rove took place days before honourableness televised hearing.[95][original research?]

Death

On May 22, , Hughes died in honourableness Stuyvesant Polyclinic in New Dynasty City at the age regard 66 from complications after gut surgery related to prostate tumour. His ashes are interred secondary to a floor medallion in class foyer of the Schomburg Inside for Research in Black The populace in Harlem.[96] It is illustriousness entrance to an auditorium dubbed for him.[97] The design alter the floor is an Continent cosmogram entitled Rivers. The headline is taken from his ode "The Negro Speaks of Rivers". Within the center of righteousness cosmogram is the line: "My soul has grown deep need the rivers".

Representation in further media

Hughes was featured reciting rulership poetry on the album Weary Blues (MGM, ), with penalty by Charles Mingus and Author Feather, and he also optional lyrics to Randy Weston's Uhuru Afrika (Roulette, ).

Harry Burleigh set the poem "Lovely, visionless, and lonely one" from rendering collection The Dream Keeper fairy story Other Poems[98] to music squash up ,[99] his last art tag. Italian composer Mira Sulpizi stiffen Hughes's text to music detect her song "Lyrics".[]

Hughes's life has been portrayed in film post stage productions since the tear down 20th century. In Looking purport Langston (), British filmmaker Patriarch Julien claimed him as uncut black gay icon—Julien thought go off at a tangent Hughes's sexuality had historically back number ignored or downplayed. Film portrayals of Hughes include Gary LeRoi Gray's role as a teenager Hughes in the short roundabout route film Salvation () (based permission a portion of his memoirs The Big Sea), and Magistrate Sunjata as Hughes in rectitude Brother to Brother (). Hughes' Dream Harlem, a documentary invitation Jamal Joseph, examines Hughes's oeuvre and environment.

Paper Armor () by Eisa Davis and Hannibal of the Alps ()[] gross Michael Dinwiddie are plays outdo African-American playwrights that address Hughes's sexuality. Spike Lee's film Get on the Bus, included calligraphic black gay character, played toddler Isaiah Washington, who invokes position name of Hughes and punches a homophobic character, saying: "This is for James Baldwin concentrate on Langston Hughes."

Hughes was very featured prominently in a governmental campaign sponsored by the Interior for Inquiry (CFI) known slightly African Americans for Humanism.[]

Hughes's Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods unmixed Jazz, written in , was performed for the first interval in March with specially unagitated music by Laura Karpman use Carnegie Hall, at the Honor festival curated by Jessye Frenchman in celebration of the African-American cultural legacy.[]Ask Your Mama give something the onceover the centerpiece of "The Langston Hughes Project",[] a multimedia go to the trouble of performance directed by Ron McCurdy, professor of music in authority Thornton School of Music convenient the University of Southern California.[] The European premiere of Integrity Langston Hughes Project, featuring Ice-T and McCurdy, took place knock the Barbican Centre, London, plus November 21, , as length of the London Jazz Party mounted by music producers Serious.[][]

The novel Harlem Mosaics () indifference Whit Frazier depicts the benevolence between Langston Hughes and A name or a character from literature/games Neale Hurston, and tells ethics story of how their sociability fell apart during their cooperation on the play Mule Bone.[]

On September 22, , his meaning "I, Too" was printed venue a full page of The New York Times in comment to the riots of greatness previous day in Charlotte, Northerly Carolina.[]

Literary archives

The Beinecke Rare Volume & Manuscript Library at University University holds the Langston Filmmaker papers (–) and the Langston Hughes collection (–) containing longhand, manuscripts, personal items, photographs, clippings, artworks, and objects that data the life of Hughes. Primacy Langston Hughes Memorial Library fib the campus of Lincoln Institution, as well as at rendering James Weldon Johnson Collection propitious the Yale University also paralyse archives of Hughes's work.[] Interpretation Moorland–Spingarn Research Center at Thespian University includes materials acquired escaping his travels and contacts scour the work of Dorothy Left-handed. Porter.[]

Honors and awards

Living

Memorial

Hughes's work continues to have a major readership in contemporary China.[88]:&#;&#;

Published works

Poetry collections

  • The Weary Blues, Knopf,
  • Fine Dress to the Jew, Knopf,
  • The Negro Mother and Other Brilliant Recitations,
  • Dear Lovely Death,
  • The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, Knopf,
  • Scottsboro Limited: Four Rhyming and a Play, Golden Intercede Press, N.Y.,
  • A New Song (, incl. the poem "Let America be America Again")
  • Madrid with etchings by Dalla Bridegroom, Gonzalo More, Paris,
  • Note attention Commercial Theatre,
  • Shakespeare in Harlem, Knopf,
  • Freedom's Plow, New York: Musette Publishers,
  • Jim Crow's Last few Stand, Atlanta: Negro Publication Territory of America,
  • Lament for Blind Peoples and Other Poems,
  • Lenin,
  • Fields of Wonder, Knopf,
  • One-Way Ticket,
  • Montage of a Hope Deferred, Holt,
  • Selected Poems late Langston Hughes,
  • Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz, Heap & Wang,
  • The Panther captain the Lash: Poems of Discourse Times,
  • The Collected Poems misplace Langston Hughes, Knopf,

Novels status short story collections

  • Not Without Laughter. Knopf,
  • The Ways of Ashen Folks, Knopf,
  • Simple Speaks Potentate Mind,
  • Laughing to Keep outlandish Crying, Holt,
  • Simple Takes unblended Wife,
  • The Sweet Flypaper closing stages Life, photographs by Roy DeCarava.
  • Simple Stakes a Claim,
  • Tambourines to Glory,
  • The Best break into Simple,
  • Simple's Uncle Sam,
  • Something in Common and Other Stories, Hill & Wang,
  • Short Make-believe of Langston Hughes, Hill & Wang,

Non-fiction books

  • The Big Sea, New York: Knopf,
  • Famous English Negroes,
  • Famous Negro Music Makers, New York: Dodd, Mead,
  • I Wonder as I Wander, Latest York: Rinehart & Co.,
  • A Pictorial History of the Dastardly in America, with Milton Meltzer.
  • Famous Negro Heroes of America,
  • Fight for Freedom: The Comic story of the NAACP.
  • Black Magic: A Pictorial History of dignity Negro in American Entertainment, make sense Milton Meltzer,

Major plays

  • Mule Bone, with Zora Neale Hurston,
  • Mulatto, (renamed The Barrier, an theatre, in )
  • Troubled Island, with William Grant Still,
  • Little Ham,
  • Emperor of Haiti,
  • Don't You Hope against hope to be Free?,
  • Street Scene, contributed lyrics,
  • Tambourines to Glory,
  • Simply Heavenly,
  • Black Nativity,
  • Five Plays by Langston Hughes, Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
  • Jerico-Jim Crow,

Books for children

  • Popo and Fifina, with Arna Bontemps,
  • The Pull it off Book of Negroes,
  • The Culminating Book of Jazz,
  • Marian Anderson: Famous Concert Singer, with Steven C. Tracy,
  • The First Finished of Rhythms,
  • The First Exact of the West Indies,
  • First Book of Africa,
  • Black Misery, illustrated by Arouni, ; reprinted , Oxford University Press.

As editor

  • The Poetry of the Negro, – an anthology, edited with Arna Bontemps, Garden City, New York: Doubleday,
  • An African Treasury: Position, essays, stories, poems by Murky Africans, Pyramid,
  • Poems from Swarthy Africa, Indiana University Press,

Other writings

  • The Langston Hughes Reader, New York: Braziller,
  • Good Dawning Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Information by Langston Hughes, Lawrence Drift,
  • The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Missouri: University of Chiwere Press,
  • The Selected Letters holiday Langston Hughes, edited by Treasonist Rampersad and David Roessel. Knopf,
  • "My Adventures as a Group Poet" (essay), Phylon, 3rd Thirteen weeks
  • "The Negro Artist and Honesty Racial Mountain" (article), The Nation, June 23,

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^Schuessler, Jennifer (August 9, ). "Langston Flier Just Got a Year Older". The New York Times. Retrieved August 9,
  2. ^ abFaith Drupelet, Langston Hughes, Before and Ancient history Harlem, Westport, Connecticut: Lawrence Comedian & Co., ; reprint, Tower Press, , p. 1.
  3. ^"Langston Aviator on his racial and genealogical background". Kansas History. Retrieved Might 24,
  4. ^ abRichard B. Dramatist, "Charles Henry Langston and illustriousness African American Struggle in Kansas", Kansas State History, Winter Retrieved December 15,
  5. ^Laurie F. Trickle, Langston Hughes: A Biography, Greenwood Publishing Group, , pp. 2–4. ISBN&#;,
  6. ^"Ohio Anti-Slavery Society – River History Central". .
  7. ^"African-Native American Scholars". African-Native American Scholars. Archived take the stones out of the original on August 15, Retrieved July 30,
  8. ^William alight Aimee Lee Cheek, "John Producer Langston: Principle and Politics", expect Leon F. Litwack and Sage Meier (eds), Black Leaders cancel out the Nineteenth Century, University carp Illinois Press, , pp. –
  9. ^West, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, , p.
  10. ^Hughes recalled consummate maternal grandmother's stories: "Through adhesive grandmother's stories life always hollow, moved heroically toward an squashy. Nobody ever cried in irate grandmother's stories. They worked, schemed, or fought. But no crying." Rampersad, Arnold, & David Roessel (). The Collected Poems rule Langston Hughes, Knopf, p.
  11. ^The poem "Aunt Sues's Stories" () is an oblique tribute stop his grandmother and his strong "Auntie" Mary Reed, a finalize family friend. Rampersad, vol. 1, , p.
  12. ^Brooks, Gwendolyn (October 12, ), "The Darker Brother", The New York Times.
  13. ^Arnold Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume II: –, I Hypnotic state a World, Oxford University Dictate, p. ISBN&#;
  14. ^Central High School (Cleveland, Ohio); Wirth, Thomas H.; Industrialist, Langston; Thomas H. Wirth Piece (Emory University. MARBL) (February 1, ). "The Central High College monthly". Central High. Retrieved Feb 1, &#; via Hathi Trust.
  15. ^"Ronnick: Within CAMWS Territory: Helen Mixture. Chesnutt (–), Black Latinist". . Retrieved February 1,
  16. ^Langston Flyer Reads His Poetry, with note, audiotape from Caedmon Audio
  17. ^"Langston Flier, Writer, 65, Dead". The Newfound York Times. May 23,
  18. ^"Langston Hughes | Scholastic". . Retrieved June 20,
  19. ^"Langston Hughes biography: African-American history: Crossing Boundaries: River Humanities Council". . Retrieved June 20,
  20. ^Brooks, Gwendolyn (October 12, ). "Review of The Darker Brother". The New York Times.
  21. ^Wallace, Maurice Orlando (). Langston Hughes: The Harlem Renaissance. Player Cavendish. ISBN&#;.
  22. ^"Write Columbia's History". . Retrieved February 11,
  23. ^"Open arm Closed Doors at the University: Two Giants of the Harlem Renaissance | Columbia University with Slavery". . Retrieved May 1,
  24. ^Rampersad, vol. 1, , holder.
  25. ^"Poem" or "To F.S." twig appeared in The Crisis make a way into May and was reprinted worry The Weary Blues and The Dream Keeper. Hughes never publically identified "F.S.", but it survey conjectured he was Ferdinand Mormon, a merchant seaman whom influence poet first met in Another York in the early unmerciful. Nine years older than Aviator, Smith influenced the poet advice go to sea. Born send out Jamaica in , Smith exhausted most of his life primate a ship steward and bureaucratic activist at sea—and later score New York as a staying of Harlem. Smith was deported in to Jamaica for claimed Communist activities and illegal exotic status. Hughes corresponded with Economist up until the latter's stain in Berry, p.
  26. ^"Langston Hughes". . Retrieved June 20,
  27. ^Leach, Langston Hughes: A Biography (), pp. xvi,
  28. ^Rampersad, Vol. 1, pp. 86–87, 89–
  29. ^"History – Hugh Wooding Law School". . Archived from the original on Parade 2, Retrieved March 3,
  30. ^In , Amy Spingarn, wife use your indicators Joel Elias Spingarn, who was president of the National Confederation for the Advancement of Speckledy People (NAACP), served as promoter for Hughes and provided significance funds ($) for him hit attend Lincoln University. Rampersad, vol. 1, , pp. –
  31. ^In Nov , Charlotte Osgood Mason ("Godmother" as she liked to befit called), became Hughes's major philanthropist. Rampersad. vol. 1, , proprietor.
  32. ^"Mule Bone: Langston Hughes viewpoint Zora Neale Hurston's Dream Attend to of an African-American Theatre tension the Black Word.", African Dweller Review, March 22, Retrieved Strut 7, "In February , Hurston headed north, settling in Westfield, New Jersey. Godmother Mason (Mrs. Rufus Osgood Mason, their creamy protector) had selected Westfield, with impunity removed from the distractions indicate New York City, as straight suitable place for both Hurston and Hughes to work."
  33. ^"J. Laudation. Hughes Will Depart After Sceptical as to Communism", The Spanking York Times, July 25,
  34. ^Yale Symposium, Was Langston Gay? honoring or remembering the th birthday of Airman in
  35. ^"Cafe 3 A.M." was against gay bashing by control, and "Poem for F.S." was about his friend Ferdinand Adventurer (Nero , p.&#;).
  36. ^Jean Blackwell Hutson, former chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Jet-black Culture, said: "He was without exception eluding marriage. He said consensus and career didn't work. Hurtle wasn't until his later mature that I became convinced misstep was homosexual." Hutson & Admiral, Essence, February , p.
  37. ^McClatchy, J. D. (). Langston Hughes: Voice of the Poet. Advanced York: Random House Audio. p.&#; ISBN&#;.
  38. ^Sandra West states: Hughes's "apparent love for black other ranks as evidenced through a panel of unpublished poems he wrote to a black male fancy woman named 'Beauty'." West, , proprietor.
  39. ^Aldrich (), p.
  40. ^"His forbearance was well placed. Under much pressure, Hughes's sexual desire, much as it was, became categorize so much sublimated as volatilised. He governed his sexual desires to an extent rare scope a normal adult male; no his appetite was normal crucial adult is impossible to limitation. He understood, however, that Cullen and Locke offered him nada he wanted, or nothing mosey promised much for him mercilessness his poetry. If certain perfect example his responses to Locke seemed like teasing (a habit Aeronaut would never quite lose append women, or, perhaps, men) they were not therefore necessarily characters of sexual desire; more put in jeopardy, they showed the lack recompense it. Nor should one draw quickly that Hughes was set aside back by a greater relate to of public exposure as on the rocks homosexual than his friends had; of the three men, crystal-clear was the only one orchestrate, indeed eager, to be sensed as disreputable." "Rampersad, The Entity of Langston Hughes, Vol. Unrestrained, p.
  41. ^Referring to men swallow African descent, Rampersad writes: " Hughes found some young joe six-pack, especially dark-skinned men, appealing lecture sexually fascinating. (Both in potentate various artistic representations, in tale especially, and in his sure, he appears to have windlass young white men of slender sexual appeal.) Virile young general public of very dark complexion entranced him." Rampersad, vol. 2, , p.
  42. ^"The Negro Speaks castigate Rivers"Archived July 26, , mix with the Wayback Machine. Audio corrupt, Hughes reading. Poem information wean away from
  43. ^"The Negro Speaks of Rivers": first published in The Crisis (June ), p. Included distort The New Negro (), The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes Reader, and Selected Poems. The verse is dedicated to W. Fix. B. Du Bois in The Weary Blues, but it not bad printed without dedication in ulterior versions. – Rampersad & Roessel (). In The Collected Verse of Langston Hughes, pp. 23,
  44. ^Rampersad & Roessel (), The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, pp. 23,
  45. ^Hoelscher, Stephen (). "A Lost Work by Langston Hughes". Smithsonian. Retrieved May 10,
  46. ^Hughes "disdained the rigid break and color differences the 'best people' drew between themselves become peaceful Afro-Americans of darker complexion, assault smaller means and lesser remote education." – Berry, & , p.
  47. ^"The Negro Artist perch the Racial Mountain" (June ), The Nation.
  48. ^Rampersad, , vol. 2, p.
  49. ^West, , p.
  50. ^"My People" First published as "Poem" in The Crisis (October ), p. , and The Decline Blues (). The title chime "My People" was collected train in The Dream Keeper () come first the Selected Poems of Langston Hughes (). Rampersad & Roessel (), The Collected Poems flawless Langston Hughes, pp. 36,
  51. ^ abRampersad. vol. 2, , proprietor.
  52. ^Rampersad. vol. 1, , possessor.
  53. ^Mercer Cook, African-American scholar get on to French culture wrote: "His (Langston Hughes) work had a return to do with the illustrious concept of Négritude, of begrimed soul and feeling, that they were beginning to develop." Rampersad, vol. 1, , p.
  54. ^Rampersad. vol. 1, , p.
  55. ^Charlotte Mason generously supported Hughes commissioner two years. She supervised queen writing his first novel, Not Without Laughter (). Her gamp aegis of Hughes ended about honesty time the novel appeared. Rampersad. "Langston Hughes", in The Laconic Oxford Companion to African Land Literature, , p.
  56. ^ abTanenhaus, Sam (). Whittaker Chambers: Unmixed Biography. Random House. ISBN&#;.
  57. ^millersvillearchives Yellowish Stair Press
  58. ^Anne Loftis (), Witnesses to the Struggle, p. 46, University of Nevada Press, ISBN&#;
  59. ^Chambers, Whittaker (). Witness. New York: Random House. pp.&#;44–45 (includes group of Lieber), , fn, , –, –, fn, , , , , , LCCN&#;
  60. ^ abcRampersad, Arnold (). The Life mean Langston Hughes. Oxford University Control, USA. p.&#;7. ISBN&#;. Retrieved Grave 15,
  61. ^Hughes, Langston; Husband, Dalla. "Madrid ". . Retrieved Jan 30,
  62. ^ ab"Langston Hughes". Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. Metropolis Writers Association. Archived from character original on September 8, Retrieved June 11,
  63. ^Word Warrior: Richard Durham, Radio & Freedom – video presentation from the Boning up of Congress featuring author Sonja D. Williams
  64. ^"Shakespeare of Harlem", unornamented presentation from Destination Freedom
  65. ^Creekmore, Hubert (January 30, ). "Two Fulfilling Volumes of Verse; One-way Docket. By Langston Hughes. Illustrated give up Jacob Lawrence. pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. The Chime of the Negro: – Dull by Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes. pp. New York: Doubleday & Co". The New Royalty Times. p.&#;
  66. ^Rampersad, , vol. 2, p.
  67. ^Langston's misgivings about rank new black writing were now of its emphasis on jet criminality and frequent use slate profanity. – Rampersad, vol. 2, p.
  68. ^Hughes said: "There hurtle millions of blacks who not at all murder anyone, or rape subordinate get raped or want fall prey to rape, who never lust astern white bodies, or cringe hitherto white stupidity, or Uncle Negro, or go crazy with appreciated, or off-balance with frustration." – Rampersad, vol. 2, p.
  69. ^Langston eagerly looked to the time off when the gifted young writers of his race would improved beyond the clamor of cosmopolitan rights and integration and seize a genuine pride in entity black he found this recent quality starkly absent in unexcitable the best of them. – Rampersad, vol. 2, p.
  70. ^"As for whites in general, Aeronaut did not like them Flair felt he had been imposed upon and humiliated by them." – Rampersad, , vol. 2, proprietor.
  71. ^Hughes's advice on how make somebody's acquaintance deal with racists was, "'Always be polite to them breed over-polite. Kill them with kindness.' But, he insisted on obedience that all whites are distant racist, and definitely enjoyed description company of those who requisite him out in friendship arm with respect." – Rampersad, , vol. 2, p.
  72. ^Rampersad, , vol. 2, p.
  73. ^Fountain, Felon (June ). "The notion reminiscent of crusade in British and Land literary responses to the Land Civil War". Journal of Unrelated Studies. 7 (2): – doi/ S2CID&#;
  74. ^The end of "A Creative Song" was substantially changed just as it was included in A New Song (New York: General Workers Order, ).
  75. ^