Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes was a man that can be known for his insight into urban life on the streets of Harlem. He struggles though opposition because of his race and rises above expectations to be a leader and activist in the civil rights movement. He steps over boundaries in his time that no other African American writer had ever crossed and makes it possible for many others to do so in the future. Hughes gives hope to many people while angering others who do not want change and resent such an offensive view of life in Harlem. This paper will discuss a brief history of his life and some of his work, professional and personal critiques of his work. It will also have a personal evaluation of his work and why I choose Hughes to research.

Langston Hughes was born on February first, 1902 to Carrie and James Hughes in Joplin, Missouri (Reuben 5). His parents separated in his early childhood and Hughes lived with his grandmother while his mother pressured a career as an actress, and his father practiced law in Mexico. It is suggested that his father was unable to work in the United States because he was black. Hughes’s grandmother died in his early teenage years and he moved to Illinois to live with his mother and his new stepfather. While living with his mother Hughes wrote his first poem which was well accepted in his school.

Langston enjoyed writing poetry during his high school years. His works were published in his high school’s newspaper. Hughes was encouraged by the acceptance of his work by his classmates and began to submit his poems to literacy magazines in New York. Much to Hughes’ disappointment, his poems were rejected until 1921 when the magazine The Liberator, sponsored by the NAACP offered Hughes a publishing opportunity (Reuben 6). Hughes’ first poems professionally published are “Winter Sweetness” and “Fairies”. Six months later his poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” was published. This publication would be the first step in Hughes’ literacy career, a career that would become his legacy.

Hughes wanted to attend college and sought his father’s assistance for finical help for his first year. He attended Columbia in 1921. Hughes, disappointed in the experience of college left less then a year later. During his hiatus he enjoyed the sounds and diversity of life in Harlem that can only exist in Harlem. It was there that he would inhale the intoxicating scent in jazz and blues that would become a part of him and influence his work.

Looking for work Langston took on a job as a sailor. He was traveling around the world visiting Africa and Europe and remained abroad until 1924. During this time several of his works were being published in the United States. When he came back to America, much to his surprise he learned that his poems and plays were being well received and he won several awards for his insight and originality in his work.

Hughes works were received well by people in the literacy world who were his target audience (Nichols 1) but his works outraged his fellow race in Harlem. Hughes wrote about how as he saw life on the streets and in the clubs in Harlem and for not creating some fantasies about how life was for an African American in his time.

Hughes wrote what he saw, what he knew and felt. The themes of his poetry came from his own personal life, his travels and his involvement in the radical and protest movements (Nichols 1) taking place. Some people believed that he was shaming his own race in a degrading way through his poetry, however he was showing his contempt for the way society treated him and his brothers. He was “determined to reflect the everyday lives of the working class culture” (Sisler 2) Hughes showed the world how beautiful he and his race was, as well as how horrible they were being treated. The fact his works were receiving such attention proves that it was having a powerful effect on people reading it.

During Hughes’ time in Harlem, he visited nightclubs and found rhythm for his poems though music which would have a huge impact on his writing. He began to write his poems with a Blues or Jazz rhythm. Hughes wanted to write poems that moved people the way the music in Harlem moved them. Hughes accepted a job at the Journal of Negro Life and History where he was in a position to be in the “role as a shaper of African American culture as well as a maker of it. His lifelong encouragement for younger writers is well known. But more ambitiously, his supporting impulse also represents a move to shape American literature by making the work of black writers available, and to shape African American poetry” (Alexander 2). Hughes would continue this role in life and return to Harlem in 1926.

During the 1930’s Hughes became a “promoter of African American culture” ( Kennedy and Gioia 1030) speaking on tours across the country. As his writings were being accepted, Hughes worked writing fiction, drama, translation, criticism, songwriting as well as continuing with his first love, poetry. Later in his life he would move to mainstream progressive politics as the civil rights movement raged forward.

Hughes wrote "Ballad of the Landlord" in 1943. This poem shows his contempt of the continuing prejudice toward African Americans, to the unfair treatment they received over even the smallest tings. This poem gives a devastating look of into the life our fellow citizens had to endure because of the color of their skin.

Ballad of the Landlord

by Langston Hughes

Landlord, landlord,

My roof has sprung a leak.

Don't you 'member I told you about it

Way last week?

Landlord, landlord,

These steps is broken down.

When you come up yourself

It's a wonder you don't fall down.

Ten Bucks you say I owe you?

Ten Bucks you say is due?

Well, that's Ten Bucks more'n I'l pay you

Till you flx this house up new.

What? You gonna get eviction orders?

You gonna cut off my heat?

You gonna take my furniture and