Langston Hughes Essay examples -- essays research papers

Langston Hughes James Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. He was named after his father, but it was later shortened to just Langston Hughes. He was the only child of James and Carrie Hughes. His family was never happy so he was a lonely youth. The reasons for their unhappiness had as much to do with the color of their skin and the society into which they had been born as they did with their opposite personalities. They were victims of white attitudes and discriminatory laws. They moved to Oklahoma in the late 1890s. Although the institution of slavery was officially abolished racial discrimination and segregation persisted. Langston Hughes parents then separated. Since his mother moved from city to city in search of work he lived in Lawrence, Kansas, with his grandmother named Mary Hughes. She fiercely opposed to racial discrimination. While growing up, Langston also stayed with friends of the family, James and Mary Reed. Living with his grandmother and the Reeds in all-white neighborhoods, he felt even more isolated. When Langston was ready to start school in 1908, his mother was told that because her son was black, he could not attend a nearby, mostly white school in Topeka, Kansas. Carrie, his mother, fought with the school over their decision. She won her fight and Langston was finally admitted to the school. He dealed with his loneliness by writing poetry. After Langston’s grandmother died in 1915, he went to live with his mother, her second husband, Homer Clark, and Clark’s two-year-old son, Gwyn. They went from Lawrence, Kansas to Kansas City, Missouri to Lincoln, Illinois. They moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1916. Clark moved to Chicago, Illinois. Langston’s mother followed him and Langston was left alone in Cleveland. He devoted himself to his class work and other interests. He was on the editorial staff, on the student council, one the track team, an officer in the drill corps, and acted in school plays. When Langston Hughes attended Central High, the student body was very ethnically diverse. Langston’s Jewish friends were the ones who first opened his eyes to the ideals of socialism. Socialism is the doctrine that all property in a society is public property. Claude McKay, a black writer whose articles and poems appeared in the Liberator, became a favorite of Langston’s. Langston started to use Negro (African-American... ...es spent the early part of the 1940’s working on his autobiography, The Big Sea, which tells in brilliantly clear language the story of his life up to the year 1931.He explored the expressing validity of black vernacular in urban and rural black lifestyles. He graduated from Lincoln University in 1930. He wrote playwrights and created major Broadway successes as Scottsboro Limited (1932) and Mulatto (1935). In first collections of short stories, The Ways Of White Folks, published in 1934.He was recognized as Simple a humorist through the creation of a character named Jessie B. Semple who, Simple States A Claim (1957), makes commentary on social issues confronting the black community in a vernacular style which strikes a common chord in its simplicity. In 1957, Semple was brought to Broadway in the musical Simply Heavenly. In May 22, 1967 Langston Hughes in died in New York City. The reason why I picked Langston Hughes as my famous African American was because his poems are my favorites. The other reason is that he was always trying to improve the life of African Americans. So, as in conclusion, I would like to say Langston Hughes is an American hero.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚