Langston Hughes: The Famous Omega Man

The famous Omega Man I chose to write about is Langston Hughes because I feel that we have a connection, seeing that we both have had a poor relationship with our biological fathers. Langston Hughes was a poet from Joplin, Missouri. He was the son of teacher Carrie Langston and James Nathaniel Hughes. He is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. His father abandoned the family and left for Cuba, then Mexico, due to enduring racism in the United States. Young Langston was left to be raised by his grandmother in Lawrence, Kansas. After she died, he went to live with family friends. Due to an unstable early life, his childhood was not a happy one but it heavily influenced the poet he would soon become. His devotion to black music led him to …show more content…
With his books he established himself as a major force of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes attended Central High School in Cleveland, Ohio, but began writing poetry in the eighth grade, and was selected as Class Poet. His father didn't think he would be able to make a living at writing, and encouraged him to pursue a more practical career. In 1923, Langston spent six months traveling to West Africa and Europe. In Europe he stayed for a while in Paris, France, becoming part of the black American expatriate community. In November 1924, he returned to the US to live with his mother in Washington, DC. The following year, Hughes received a scholarship and enrolled at historically black Lincoln University, where he became a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and became friends with Thurgood Marshall. Hughes received a B.A. in 1929 and a Litt.D. in 1943. Except for travels to the Caribbean and West Indies, Harlem was Hughes' primary home for the rest of his life. Hughes achieved fame as a literary luminary during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. In 1930 his first novel, "Not Without Laughter", won the Harmon gold medal for