Langston Hughes: A Brief Biography

Langston Hughes lived a very successful life. He impacted many people and changed their lives in a huge way. Langston has written many books, poems, plays, and even songs. Ever since Langston was a child, he was very intelligent and had a love for writing. Hughes liked to focus his literary works on racial injustice (Langston Hughes Biography). Hughes's was one of the leading voice for the Harlem Renaissance (Meet the Writer 136). Through Langston Hughes’ life, we see how he became successful, impacted many, and how jazz was used in his writings. James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri on February 1, 1902 (Langston Hughes Biography). As an adult, Langston wrote many literary works about his lonely childhood. His …show more content…
where he continued to write literary works (Langston Hughes Biography). He wrote stories and poetry on a typewriter in his appartment (Meet the Writer 136). While working as a busboy in D.C., he met Vachel Lindsay, an American poet, where he showed her one of his poems (Langston Hughes Biography). She later brought his poem to a wider audience (Langston Hughes Biography). The poem, “The Weary Blues”, was a success and it won first prize in the “Oppurtunity” magazine for literary competition (Langston Hughes Biography). Hughes then went to Lincoln University on a scholarship where he later finished college (Langston Hughes Biography). At college, Hughes's literary work became a success and he got even more poems published with the help from other writers (Langston Hughes Biography). In 1929, Langston graduated college and then he immediately published his first novel, Not Without Laughter (Langston Hughes Biography). After graduating, Langston traveled the world on lecture tours, to the Soviet Union, Japan, and Haiti (Langston Hughes Biography). In the 1930’s, Langston also served as a war correspondent for some American newspapers during the Spanish War (Langston Hughes …show more content…
His funeral was filled with his favorite music, jazz, and the blues (Langston Hughes Biography). His ashes are beneath the entrance of Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem (Langston Hughes Biography). The words inscribed near the ashes are from the “Negro speaks of Rivers” poem which says, “My soul has grown deep like the rivers” Langston Hughes Biography). Langston Hughes’s home is now a Landmark in New York (Langston Hughes Biography). Langston had this saying about life, “I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go” (Meet the Writer