Langston Hughes

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Langston Hughes Research Paper
During the 1920s many artists came to Harlem to express themselves. Many of these shriving artists were African-Americans and looking for opportunities. One of the most recognized of these African-American artists was Langston Hughes. Hughes wrote of his experiences as an African-American and expressed his struggles in various poems. Such poems are “Dream Variation” and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”.
Langston Hughes was born in 1902 in Joplin Missouri. Soon after his birth, his parents separated. James Nathaniel, Hughes’ father, left him, and went back to Cuba to work as an attorney. Hughes lived with his grandmother and mother Carrie Mercer in the United States. It was with her that Hughes’ learned of his grandfather’s history and the “constant discrimination that would haunt him in life as he struggled for freedom.” (Gale Net Resource Biography Page 2) After his grandmothers’ death in 1910, he went to live with his mother and stepfather in Cleveland, Ohio where he attended Central high school. It was there that he discovered his passion for writing while working for the high school magazine, and also edited the school yearbook. Hughes dropped out of Columbia University to work odd jobs to support himself and his mother who moved into Harlem. After spending the next two years in poverty overseas in Italy and France, he returned to his mother and half-brother in Washington D.C. It was there that Hughes was discovered, when he “attracted the attention of poet Vachel Lindsay by intentionally placing three of his poems of Lindsay’s dinner table.” (Gale Net Resource Biography Page2) After this discovery, reporters flocked to Hughes to listen to his works. Following this event, Hughes proceeded to attend Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he continued writing poetry, short stories, and essays. With the help of critic and art patron Carl Van Vechten, Hughes published his first ...