Hughes
As a talented American author, Langston Hughes captured and integrated the realities and demands of Africa America in his work by utilizing the beauty, dignity, and heritage of blacks in America in the 1920s. Hughes was reared for a time by his grandmother in Kansas after his parents' divorce. Influenced by the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Carl Sandburg, he began writing creatively while still a boy. Not only did Hughes suffer from poverty but also from restrictions that came with living in a segregated community. While he attended an integrated school, he was not permitted to play team sports or join the Boy Scouts. Even his favorite movie theater put a sign that read "No Colored Admitted." In spite of these obstacles, Hughes developed a natural sense of self-confidence and hope. His grandmother always lived as a free woman and was insistent about standing up for the right of all people to be free. Under her influence, Hughes learned to endure the hardships of prejudice without surrendering his dignity or pride. (Berry 7) "My father hated Negroes," Hughes wrote, "I think he hated himself, too, for being a Negro." Hughes wanted to attend Colombia University and needed his father's financial aid. His father
It was an era in which black people were perceived as having finally liberated themselves from a past fraught with self-doubt to an unprecedented optimism. " Jazz to him was one of the most intrinsic expressions of Negro life in America. (Berry 5) Bibliography Berry, S. He truly believed that these people were producing art and culture all the time, almost as if they were rainbows that had to be captured before they vanished. His personal compassion, social awareness, and literary talent made him one of the dominant voices in American literature and perhaps the single most influential black poet. The Harlem Renaissance was a provocative response to the new era: an aesthetic response that transcends time to celebrate identity, creativity, the past, and the present. His interest in portraying the lives of average people angered black leaders who believed that black writers should emphasize the best qualities of blacks so white leaders would obtain a favorable impression. He was discriminated against from dormitories to the student newspaper. A Research Brief: Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance. He always sought to speak to all Americans, especially on the larger issues of social, economic, and political justice. He created a body of work-poetry, fiction, journalism, essays, plays, and song lyrics-that reflected on the black experience and informed white Americans about racial issues. He did not hide the fact that he lived with racism, but he talked of his strength, and the strength of many other blacks, to stand tall and believe in a better future. (Rummel 54-55) The versatility of Hughes was apparent in his capacity to create every literary genre-poetry, fiction, drama, essay, and history.
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