Langston Childhood- Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. He is the second son of Carrie Mercer Langston and James Nathaniel Hughes. Langston was essentially a mixed race. He was part African American, European American, and Native American. Langston was named after his father and his great uncle, John Mercer Langston, who was the first black person to be elected into the United States Congress. During Langston’s younger years he was faced with family dispute. His father divorced his mother and moved to Cuba and then Mexico to get away from the steady racism in America. His mother also was work bound and couldn’t properly raise Langston. Therefore his grandmother resided to raising Langston. His grandmother spent all of her time trying to keep Langston’s hopes up and telling him to ignore the racist slurs and stuff that was happening. After the death of his grandmother, Langston then moved in with some of his family members. I think because of his rough childhood he was able to be a very successful poet. During his childhood his grandmother always wanted the best for Langston so she sent him to grammar schools. During participation to grammar school he was elected class poet. While attending school he was looked highly upon by his teacher. His teacher always loved to get his work and read it. He also wrote for the school newspaper and edited the yearbook and many other things that dealt with the school.
Langston’s Father – Langston lived with his father for a little bit in Mexico in 1919. He then graduated in 1920 and convinced his father to supply money for him to attend college. He then attended Columbia University. Langston’s father wanted him to go to college to be a part of the engineering program but Langston did not want to. They then reached a compromise that if Langston’s father would pay for college if he enrolled in the engineering program. Later on Langston moved out from his father in 1921. While in college Langston was able to contain a B+ average but later left the college because of racial prejudice.
Older Years of Langston- Over his years Langston worked many odd jobs and even worked on board the SS Malone as tenure. In 1924 Langston returned to Washington D.C. to live with his mother. During this time Langston further mored his love for writing. He was extremely impressed by the poet Vachel Lindsay. Langston showed this poet some of his work. Vachel was impressed and decided to publish some of Langston’s work. After this Langston enrolled in the Lincoln University. This was a historic black university and Langston fit right in. At this college Langston secured his bachelors associates degree and moved to New York. Then he moved to Harlem where he would spend most of his later years. Langston was determined to be gay and he occasionally left homosexual codes in his poems. But he never did come out of the closet. Hughes died on May 22, 1967 at the age of 65. He died from complications from an abdominal surgery.
My Views- we are currently working on our poems projects in Lit class and we read multiple poems from Langston Hughes. Personally he has some very interesting poems. I don’t really like to read poems but I can actually stand reading his poetry. That’s partially the reason why I chose this topic. Langston had a impact on our history because if it wasn’t for African Americans like him we would still be in a more racist society. Many African Americans looked up to him which motivated them to actually do something with their life instead of falling to gloom of being made fun of by the color of their skin.
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