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Langston Hughes Biography

Langston Hughes is regarded as one of the most significant American authors of the twentieth century. Foremost a poet, he was the first African-American to earn a living solely from his writings after he became established. Over a forty-year career beginning in the 1920s until his death in 1967, Hughes produced poetry, plays, novels, and a variety of nonfiction. He is perhaps best known for his creation of the fictional character, Jesse B. Semple, which first appeared in a Chicago Defender newspaper column in 1943. Hughes' writings focused mainly on the lives of plain black people and show their beauty, wisdom, and strength to overcome social and economic injustice.
Although Hughes traveled extensively and later called New York City home, this biographical sketch focuses on his stay in Washington, D.C. from November 1924 to January 1926. Black Washington's middle class community experienced a literary rebirth during the 1920s. Eventually, some writers took their skills to Harlem, a section of New York City widely considered to be the "Mecca" of black culture in the 1920s.
Hughes was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, but grew up in Lawrence, Kansas. His parents separated shortly after his birth, because his father disliked racism and moved to Mexico. Hughes' grandmother raised him. As a teenager, he joined his mother in Cleveland after she had remarried. From 1916 through 1923, Hughes visited his father in Mexico often.
During this period, he published his first prose, "Mexico Games" in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP) periodical for children, the Brownie's Book. When crossing the Mississippi River in route to Mexico in 1922, he also wrote his famous poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers."
In late 1924, following travel abroad, Hughes returned to the United States with little money. He joined his mother and younger brother at the home of relatives in the premier black residential area of Washington, LeDroit Park....