How Did Langston Hughes Influence Society

James Mercer Langston Hughes was the first African American to achieve national prominence, and the figure of such stature in the black community. His influence and ideas were inescapable, as he saw himself as a poet for an entire nation. Hughes role model, Walt Whitman helped to give him the ideas of the optimistic vision of America and how to achieve and accomplish some of the things he did in his life. Langston Hughes inspired many people and expressed the African American spirt and soul in his works.

Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. He was the only son of James Nathaniel Hughes. His Father was absent for most of his youth and did not want to have anything to do with black culture. Then Hughes was brought to his grandmothers, Mary Langston. Her house was in Lawrence, Kansas and his mother, Carrie lived with them. Mary Langston was married to a legendary rebel who was killed in an abolitionists movement led by John Brown on a raid to the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Mary would tell Langston stories of her husband while she warmed him with his bullet ridden cape. After Mary’s death, Langston then went to live with his mother and his step dad. As a kid Langston was drawn to books. He once quoted that he “began to believe in nothing but books- where if they suffered, they

There are so many writers and people who do not write also that look up to him. He accepted the challenge of expressing the heart and soul of African Americans. Keenly aware of racism, Hughes visioned a nation where domestic problems could be realized. Hughes in his poetry, expressed his own reactions to incidents in his life and in the world at large. Langston Hughes left such a lasting impression on poetry , black culture, and the people in his life, that he changed the way they lived with the spirit and soul he put into his