One of the most eminent black American writers and a literary figure of international renown, Langston Hughes was a serious and innovative artist who helped bring into the mainstream of American literature the experiences, culture, and language of the black population through poetry, fiction, and drama. By way of these literary forms he investigated with a particular combination of celebration and protest the joys and sorrows, triumphs and defeats of ordinary blacks. Fundamentally an optimist, he clung to his belief that the barriers excluding his people from the American Dream might one day be abolished.

James Langston Hughes was born on 1 February 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, to James Nathaniel and Carrie Langston Hughes. His parents separated soon after his birth, and he was raised in various Midwestern cities by his mother and his maternal grandmother. After graduating from Central High School in Cleveland in 1920, he spent thirteen months living...