Themes in Literature/Isolation and Community/Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes was an African-American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist who examined life in United States during the first part of the 20th Century, exposing oppression, discrimination, and inequality. Hughes was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. After Hughes' parents divorced, he began living with his grandmother, Mary Langston, who encouraged him to understand the importance of racial issues in America, so he dedicated much of his work to celebrating African American culture. The difficult experiences that he went through at a young age like growing up during a time of segregation motivated him to write poems while he was at grammar school. Later, while Hughes attended Central High School in Ohio, his Latin teacher taught him the importance of writing literature so he began writing for the newspaper and yearbook. He began writing short stories because books helped him escape from the hardships that he experienced. At the age of seventeen, he wrote his first poem called “When Sue Wears Red."

In the 1920s, Hughes became one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance, a congregation of African American artistic, intellectual, and political talent centered in the neighborhood of Harlem, New York. He became famous for defending racial integration around the world, especially with younger generations of Black writers, who considered Hughes as a defender of minorities’ rights. One case in point was his encouragement of Black Americans to join World War II because he believed it would help them obtain civil rights at a time of racial segregation in the United States. Hughes died on May 22, 1967 in Stuyvesant Polyclinic in New York City.