Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes (1901–1967) was a poet, novelist, playwright, columnist, and activist who also wrote operas, essays, and works for children. A “people’s poet” and a leader of the Harlem Renaissance, he was raised by his grandmother with a duty to help fellow African Americans. Indeed, his work stressed racial consciousness devoid of self-hate. Prolific from an early age, he wrote eighteen poetry collections; his most well-known poem, published when he was twenty, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” is included in The Weary Blues. Hughes died in New York City of complications from prostate cancer.

Photograph by Carl Van Vechten (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division).

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