Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

January 11, 2025

Black Entrepreneur History

#1 Source for Black Entrepreneur History

Langston Hughes – Leader of the Harlem Renaissance

Once upon at time in Black Entrepreneur History, a man named James Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902 in a place called Joplin, Missouri.

At that time, his parents, Caroline H. Clarke and James Nathaniel Hughes, were together, however, they later split. Langston’s father moved to Mexico and his mother ended up remarried later on in life, living up North.

At his parents’ split, Langston grew up with his grandmother who was a very proud woman and instilled in him the how wonderful he was being a black man and how much pride he should have in black culture. He took that and ran with it.

As a teenager, he ended up moving with his mother and his stepfather, and that was when he fell in love with writing poetry. After he graduated from high school, he went to live in Mexico with his father, however, he didn’t quite agree with his father’s philosophies in life and career, so he moved back to America within a year.

From there, a young Langston ended up in NYC, enrolling himself in Columbia University. From there, he graduated from Lincoln University because Columbia University wasn’t fit for him due to what he perceived very well to be racism and discrimination.

From there, Hughes’ writing career took off as he published his first book in 1924 when he moved to Washington D.C. The title of the book was The Weary Blues, a book of poetry. It wasn’t until 1930 that Hughes published his first novel titled Not Without Laughter.

Reading anything that Langston Hughes wrote, one will get the message that he aimed to write about real experiences of black people with a jazz feel to it, a style of poetry known as Jazz poetry. In fact, Langston became one of the major poets influencing the Harlem Renaissance.

Langston was big on traveling, being a seaman, and going to Africa and Europe, Caribbean and more, effectively creating a climate for black authors across the globe, to have black pride against European colonialism.

Langston Hughes titles include but aren’t limited to

  • The Weary Blues (1st book of poetry)
  • Not Without Laughter (1st novel; won the Harmon Gold Medal for Literature)
  • The Negro Speaks of Rivers
  • I, Too, Am America
  • The Big Sea
  • The Ways of White Folks
  • Thank You M’am
  • My People
  • Fine Clothes to the Jew
  • Good Morning, Revolution
  • Wonder as I Wander
  • Dream Boogie
  • Laughing to Keep From Crying

Langston Hughes died of prostate cancer on May 22,1967 in NYC, and his home has become a landmark in Harlem.

Here are some little known facts about Langston Hughes:

  • His mother was 18 years old at the time of his birth
  • at the time of his birth, the physician failed to give her a certificate of James Langston Hughes birth.
  • He was a short man, standing 5 feet 4 inches tall.
  • He is recorded to have had brown eyes and Black hair with an oval face.
  • The house he once lived at as a teen is located at 5709 Longfellow Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio.