Langston Hughes

James Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902. His parents separated while Hughes was still young, and he spent most of his childhood in Kansas and Ohio, sometimes living with his mother and sometimes with his grandmother while his father sought fortune in Mexico. In eighth grade, Hughes was selected as class poet, and during high school he was a frequent contributor to his school's monthly magazine. His first professionally published poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," appeared in the magazine The Crisis when Hughes was just nineteen years old. After studying for a short time at Columbia University, Hughes spent the next several years writing poetry and traveling the world as a seaman.

Hughes's first book-length collection of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published to critical acclaim in 1926. Over the next four decades, he went on to produce several more volumes of...