Research Article: Hughes, Langston

Born February 1, 1902

Joplin, Missouri

Died May 22, 1967

New York, New York

American poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, autobiographer, and nonfiction writer

Langston Hughes. (The Bettmann Archive/Newsphotos, Inc./Corbis-Bettmann. Reproduced by permission.)

"[Let the] smug Negro middle class ... turn from their white, respectable, ordinary books to catch a glimmer of their own beauty."

Probably the most famous and celebrated of all African American poets, Langston Hughes had a career that spanned five decades. He produced a wide variety of literary works from novels, plays, and short stories to children's books, translations, and anthologies. But it is for his poetry—with its gripping, vivid images and plainspoken, jazz- and blues-influenced language—that he is most remembered. And the Harlem Renaissance, the period in which he began his career,...
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