35TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION Super Hero LANGSTON HUGHES

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes wrote poetry from childhood on. His devastatingly observant yet sorrowful examinations of African-American life in Harlem—and the Black experience in general—are considered among the most powerful writings of the 20th century. One of Hughes's most famous poems, "I, Too, Sing America," is a powerful plea to the country to recognize and accept Blacks on the basis of their myriad contributions. A mentor to a generation of writers, Hughes was one of the most important voices of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. 

Happiness lives nowhere, Some old fool said, If not within oneself. 

That line, from Hughes's poem "I Thought It Was Tangiers I Wanted," speaks volumes about the life of a man whose travels took him to some of the world's most exotic places, including Mexico, Spain, and Africa. Born in February 1902, Hughes had already lived in seven cities in the United States and Mexico by the time he was 12. The handsome writer had been class poet in grammar school, and he continued to write throughout his life. For several years after school, he traveled, teaching and working as a domestic. Then, in 1924, writer and critic Vachel Lindsay "discovered" Hughes and dubbed him the "bus boy poet." 

In 1926, Hughes published his first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, followed by several volumes remarkable for the musical nature of his language. In later works, Hughes sometimes gave directions for musical accompaniment to his verses, making him one of the earliest writers to combine the two forms of artistry.

One of Hughes's plays, Mulatto (1935), had a successful run on Broadway in New York. In the 1940s, Hughes created Jesse B. Simple, a fictional character in his Chicago Defender column, who represented the lives and racial consciousness of the Black working class. 

In all, Hughes published more than ten volumes of poetry, more than 60 dramas, scores of operas, anthologies of other Black writers, and two autobiographies. During the 1930s, Hughes took aim at civil rights and economic issues. 

Ten years later, he took his genius for observation and his talent for relating to the working class to several universities. He taught at Atlanta University, then he was appointed poet-in-residence at the University of Chicago's Laboratory School. In the 1960s, Hughes turned out an incredible amount of material, including Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz (1961) and his last volume of poetry, The Panther and the Lash (1967). 

Hughes, considered by many to be the "poet laureate of Harlem," died of congestive heart failure in New York in March 1967.

From Great African Americans.  Copyright, Publications International, Ltd.