Who was Langston Hughes?
Langston Hughes was the chronicler of African American life in Harlem, New York City, from the 1920s through the 1960s. Hughes set out to portray the stories of African-American life that represented their actual culture—including the piercing heartbreak and the joy of everyday life in Harlem. Hughes listed Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his poetic influences, but the influence of jazz also found its way into Hughes’s work. Hughes’s recurring images and his innovative phrasing helped shape the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s: that time of tremendous creativity when African American arts flourished with Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Zora Neale Hurston, among others. After his death in 1967 from cancer, the home of Langston Hughes, located at 20 East 127th Street, was given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street goes by the name of “Langston Hughes Place.”
The best Langston Hughes poems
My People The night is beautiful, The stars are beautiful, So the eyes of my people. Beautiful, also, is the sun. Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people. Kids Who Die (excerpt) This is for the kids who die, Black and white, For kids will die certainly. The old and rich will live on awhile, As Always, Eating blood and gold, Letting kids die. Suicide’s Note The calm, Cool face of the river Asked me for a kiss. When Sue Wears Red (excerpt) When Susanna Jones wears red Her face is like an ancient cameo Turned brown by the ages. Come with a blast of trumpets, Jesus! Dreams (excerpt) Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Evil Looks like what drives me crazy Don’t have no effects on you— But I’m gonna keep on at it Till it drives you crazy, too. American Heartbreak I am the American heartbreak— Rock on which Freedom Stumps its toe— The great mistake That Jamestown Made long ago. Harlem (excerpt) What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? The Negro Speaks of Rivers (To W.E.B. DuBois) (excerpt) I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. Theme for English B (excerpt) The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you— Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here to this college on the hill above Harlem. I am the only colored student in my class. The work of Langston Hughes is in the public domain if you want to read more.
