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James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri to his parents James Nathaniel Hughes and Carrie Mercer Langston. -
Hughes was mostly raised by his grandmother Mary Patterson Langston and lived with her in Lawrence, Kansas.
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Hughes often hooped from place to place due to his family's instability. He lived in Kanas, Illinois and Ohio. He attended high school in Cleveland, Ohio where he began writing poetry. -
In 1920, Hughes graduated from Central Highschool in Cleveland, Ohio and began attending college at Columbia University. At that time he published his first famous poem: "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" -
One of his most refined and respected poems. It was published in The Crisis, a magazine that was operated by the NAACP. -
Another favored poem of Hughes's. Speaks of the want to be recognized as an equal, rather than someone who is beneath others. -
Langston travel to many countries and cities like Africa and Paris to work on ships. He then published his first poetry collection The Weary Blues in 1926. -
Hughes published his first novel called "Not Without Laughter" and it won the Harmon Gold Metal for Literature. -
In 1931 Hughes co-wrote a play that dove into the concept of race and identity in the South. Mulatto tells the tragic story of Bert, a young biracial man who refuses to accept the timid and silent role that society expects of him in the racially segregated South. -
In 1935 Mulatto is produced in Broadway and directed by Martin Jones. It was the first play written by an African American to be run on Broadway. Hughes began to start on folk plays there after. -
a theatrical revue that intertwines spoken word, blues, gospel music, and dramatic sketches to tell the story of the African American struggle for freedom during the 1930s. -
Hughes never married and had no kids. He was very engulfed in his work and kept his person al life hidden. Many think he could have been apart of the lgbtq community, but this remains a rumor. However, he had a close female friend named Zora Neale Hurston who he spent a lot of his time with. -
Mr. Hughes published 4 additional plays. Troubled Island , Harvest , Jericho-Jim Crow, Street Scene
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Celebrating African American roles in democracy -
Hughes writes a libretto for an opera with composer William Grant Still. It is about the struggle for freedom and independence. -
Troubled Island was premiered at the New York City Opera. -
In 1953, Langston Hughes testified before Senator McCarthy’s committee on un-American activities. (accused him of being apart of the communist party) -
Talks about the life of a Black man in Harlem New York. -
Publishes second autobiography, I Wonder as I Wander -
Black Nativity becomes one of Hughes's most famous stage pieces. It is the Nativity story with African American gospel music and dance; Premiered in New York. -
Hughes publishes his poem The Panther and the Lash, a poem about civil rights and Black pride. -
James Mercer Langston Hughes died on May 22, 1967 in New York from prostate cancer. -
Hughes, L. (1938). Don’t you want to be free? Harlem Suitcase Theatre.
Hughes, L. (1935). Mulatto: A tragedy of the Deep South. Samuel French.
Rampersad, A. (1986). The life of Langston Hughes: Volume I: 1902–1941, I, Too, Sing America. Oxford University Press.
Hatch, J. V., Shine, T. (1996). Black theater USA: Plays by African Americans, the early period 1847–1938. Free Press. -
Hatch, J. V., Shine, T. (1996). Black theater USA: Plays by African Americans, the early period 1847–1938. Free Press.
Simon Schuster.Berry, F. S. (2005). Langston Hughes: Before and beyond Harlem. Westholme Publishing.
Kutzinski, V. M. (1995). Against the American grain: Myth and history in William Carlos Williams, Jay Wright, and Nicolás Guillén. Johns Hopkins University