How Did Langston Hughes Influence Society

Langston Hughes is a poet known for his portrayals of black life in his time. This is evident in his poem, Let America Be America Again. Hughes uses his experience and reality of American Society to contrast the American Dream and what people want to accomplish. With tones of seriousness and hopefulness, Hughes conveys the ideas of freedom and equality. He mostly relies on his perspective, repetition, and imagery.

Langston Hughes was a poet, play writer, fiction writer, and novelist who spent most of his early years with his grandmother. His grandmother spent her time with him telling him stories of the past. Resultantly, he was instinctually drawn to African American culture. He later wrote stories, biographies and poems about black lives in America. Langston is very well known for his views on black lies from the twenties all through the sixties and was an important figure in shaping contributions of the Harlem Renaissance.

Arna Bontemps works is often times linked with the Harlem Renaissance, however, there is another poet that when thinking of this time, that always comes to mind. Langston Mercer Hughes was born on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. Southern living during this time, was surrounded with a thick cloud of racial tension, luckily for Hughes, he did not live in Missouri long. Like Arna, Hughes was not fully black as both of his partners were biracial. However, unlike Bontemps, his partners separated when he was young, leaving Langston with feelings of rejection and abandonment.

African Americans who moved to Harlem were astounded and inspired by the amount of people moving in to the city. Writer Langston Hughes once said, “Harlem was like a great magnet for the Negro intellectual…they began writing with a bold new voice about what it meant to be a black American,” (Brown). Hughes, the most famous poet of this time period, wrote to inspire the African Americans. His poems attracted many African Americans, but it also got the attention of publishers, and eventually all Americans, regardless of race began reading them too (“Harlem

Writers and poets emerging during that time were recapturing the African-American past. Topics such as southern roots, new urban living, and African heritage were a few of their focuses. Langston Hughes was one of these poets transforming the Black image to the rest of the world. He was largely known for the raw emotions he emitted into his poems. Laced with Jazz and Blues undertones, Hughes’ poems that forced you clearly think about what he said.

Langston Hughes is a very famous and popular name in American literature. Langston Hughes was a poet, playwright, and columnist. Hughes was born in Joplin Missouri on February 1st 1902. Langston’s first and most popular piece of work “The Negro Speak of Rivers” was published in a very popular black journal, which allowed the everyday person to read his work. Langston Hughes was very well known in the Harlem Renaissance.

Langston Hughes was one the most well known names during the Harlem Renaissance. He was a writer whose pieces ranged from novels, to plays. He wrote short stories, children’s books, translations and anthologies as well. However, his most well known pieces were his poems. Langston's writing reflected the idea that black culture should be celebrated, because it is just as valuable as white culture.

The culture of most blacks was unwanted during this time. For this reason Hughes desired to make a change and illustrate such cultural identities in his poems. In doing this he caused a shift in ideas among all people. Although the change didn’t happen immediately it did eventually occur. With that said the African American people were given less of an opportunity at jobs, schooling, and most importantly culture.

Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou were African Americans alive during the period in American history when minority groups were fighting hard for their rights and respect among the country. These two authors used their writing skill to shed light on how African Americans felt throughout this period of time, opening many people’s eyes to how the oppressed truly felt. The civil rights movement could have had an entirely different outcome if it weren’t outspoken individuals such as these two. In Hughes’s well known poem “I, Too,” Hughes talks about how the people that mistreat him will soon regret everything they’ve done and will realize the true potential of him and everyone like him.

Langston Hughes uses images of oppression to reveal a deeper truth about the way minorities have been treated in America. He uses his poems to bring into question some of Walt Whitman’s poems that indirectly state that all things are great, that all persons are one people in America, which Hughes claims is false because of all the racist views and oppression that people face from the people America. This oppression is then used to keep the minorities from Walt Whitman in his poem, “Song of Myself”, talks about the connection between all people, how we are family and are brothers and sisters who all share common bonds. He says, “ And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,/ And that all the men ever born are also my brothers,

Langston Hughes is an African American Poet who is very closely connected to his culture and expresses his feelings very thoroughly through his poetry in a jazz style. Langston Hughes is a modern poet who ignore the classical style of writing poetry and instead, in favor of oral and improve traditions of the Black culture. In majority of Langston’s poetry, many of his audience seems to take away a very strong message that many can apply to themselves or to others or his poems gives you an educational background of what’s going on in the African American community right now. For example, Langston Hughes writes a poetry piece called Afro American Fragment, which gives you a great breakdown of what an everyday African American person goes through considering that their whole history is basically taken away from them. Langston seems to show his audience that in books we never hear much about what contributions a African American person has done except for being brought to America and being a slave.

When people think of the Harlem Renaissance they think of music, literature, art, and the ability for African-Americans to be able to showcase their talents. This was a time where such authors like Langston Hughes were able to take their thoughts and portray them in a different light for the world to see. Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri where he lived for a brief period until his parents split and he was forced to live with his grandmother. He lived with her until thirteen when she shipped him back off to his mom in Lincoln, Illinois. Upon graduating high school, he attended Columbia University for one year then decided to travel to Africa and Europe before settling down in Washington D.C.

Biography/Context: Langston Hughes (1902-1967) is widely considered as one of the most successful African-American poets of all time. He was also a columnist, playwright, novelist, and social activist for African-American rights. Consequently, Hughes wrote all sorts of literature about 20th century African-Americans living in Harlem--a major black residential within the Manhattan borough of New York City--and soon became an extremely influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance, which was the rebirth movement of African-American culture in the arts during the 1920s. Hughes also had great admiration for music, and was inspired by a variety of genres/musicians such as boogie, Bach, jazz, and blues. His special love for blues music caused

Throughout much of his poetry, Langston Hughes wrestles with complex notations of African American dreams, racism, and discrimination during the Harlem Renaissance. Through various poems, Hughes uses rhetorical devices to state his point of view. He tends to use metaphors, similes, imagery, and connotation abundantly to illustrate in what he strongly believes. Discrimination and racism were very popular during the time when Langston Hughes began to develop and publish his poems, so therefore his poems are mostly based on racism and discrimination, and the desire of an African American to live the American dream. Langston Hughes poems served as a voice for all African Americans greatly throughout his living life, and even after his death.

Langston Hughes was an American poem born in the early nineteen hundreds, who became known as the leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He published many poems that brought light to the life of people of color in the twentieth century. There are three poems that the speakers are used to portray three major themes of each poem. Racism, the American Dream, and Hopes are all the major themes that Hughes uses to highlight the average life of a person of color. Theme for English B,” “Harlem,” and “Let America Be America Again” were three of Hughes’s poems that was selected to underline the themes.