From Langston Hughes Contribution To The Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement in the 1920s focusing on African-American literature, music, and art. Langston Hughes was an American author, poet and playwright and is known as one of the main literary contributors to the Harlem Renaissance. His main focus in writing was African American culture and he was among the first writers to “use jazz music and dialect to depict the life of urban blacks in his work” (A&E Network). Langston Hughes was born as James Mercer Langston Hughes, on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. He was the great-nephew of John Langston Mercer, the first African American to be elected to Congress. His parents divorced shortly after his birth and his father moved to Mexico. Hughes was raised by his maternal grandmother, Mary, until she passed away when he was a teenager. She was a great influential person in Hughes’ life because of her love of literature and culture. After her passing, Hughes traveled to various cities with his mother and step-father until they finally settled in Cleveland, Ohio. After graduating high school, Hughes published his first famous poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers in The Crisis, a literary magazine …show more content…
While Hughes’ writings are representative of black culture in America between the 1920s and 1950s, his achievements in writing are still very much a part of American culture today. Malcolm Jamal Warner, from The Cosby Show, and the Ron McCurdy Quartet are currently touring with The Langston Hughes Project, a multimedia concert of Langston Hughes’ poem, Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz. A commemorative edition of his first book, “The Weary Blues,” was also reissued by the original publisher this year as a tribute to the writer and poet. Langston Hughes is an important historical figure in U.S. and African American