Langston Hughes

Submitted By JulieElizabeth24
Words: 493
Pages: 2

Julie Jakubowski
Katie Kalagher
English 102
April 12, 2013 Echoing the voices of ordinary African Americans is prevalent in this important literary artist, Langston Hughes. Searching for equality and a rite of passage in America for an African American is a message clearly shown throughout Hughes' work. It is clear that Hughes saw himself equal to the white race, specified in the poem "I, Too." African Americas have every right to do that of which Caucasians are capable of doing. I find that Langston Hughes was trying to speak for the entire black race, a way of proving one's self to the American population. He shows that blacks are beautiful just like the whites, illustrated in his poem "Red Silk Stockings." In contrast to the poem I mentioned before Hughes seems to change his opinion on the black race as though he is discussed with how they are acting. This mixed message was found in his poem "High to Low." Things were good for a long period of time, but started to gradually go downhill as if he was too black and had no place. He found it important to uphold his race.
Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry, known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance. Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, the second child of school teacher Carrie Mercer Langston and James Nathaniel Hughes (1871–1934). Langston Hughes grew up moving around Midwestern small towns. Hughes was left without a father at a young age, due to a divorced parents and a father who was trying to escape racism in the United States, similar to that of which Hughes writes about it. While his mother searched for employment, Hughes was reared by his maternal grandmother, Mary Patterson Langston. She was a woman