Langston Hughes: Harlem Renaissance

Langston Hughes is known as one of the most influential African American poets. He has a large collection of works that still influence African American society today. Hughes contributed towards the Harlem Renaissance, which produced a surge of African American works in the 1920s. In addition, Langston Hughes is also known as one of the most inspiring African American civil rights activists and advocated for African American unity and solidarity. One of his most famous works is “Negro,” which is a poem that highlights African American identity through the personification of African American heritage. The narrator is the personified figure that connects African Americans by explaining historical allusions that contributed to African American heritage and culture. This personified narrator enhances the theme of unified heritage among African Americans in the poem “Negro” with the use of structure, historical parallels, and historical context.

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, as renowned poet, a leader during the Harlem Renaissance, and a man of color, had written poetry during a particularly difficult time for people of color. Considered a founding father of Jazz Poetry, using various techniques, and styles of poetry to convey story in a rhythmic style.

The idea that hardships may bring out of someone something they did not know they had within them is something that many people believe. American culture is one that admires resolve in the face of hardship as we believe that is when someone shines that most. However adversity does not always bring out something that was not being shown before but rather gives a new direction to talents that someone already has. Adversity may push some to recognize talents they did not they had, like for example taking an advance class in a subject they did not like but finding they are talented in understanding the subject. While adversity may help people discover a talent or build their character, adversity just mostly puts their talents to use in a different way or showcases people’s character.

Langston Hughes wrote politically challenging poems about the government. In “Let America Be America Again” brings people to the attention that African Americans never got the treatment they deserved. Hughes realizes that “there's never been equality for him” (Hughes 1) in America. Hughes, who traveled across the country, realized that racism appeared everywhere. During the Harlem Renaissance, his poetry “condemns white oppression” (Gohar 1) and encourages “racial pride” (Gohar 1). Hughes also questions the government and their biased towards a certain race. Hughes realized that “he do not need my freedom when he’s dead” (Democracy 1). Hughes pushed the limit by writing political pieces that often made white people feel guilty. Different from other authors of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes refused to make his writing overly complicated. Hughes used dialect of African Americans and themes that they related to. Many people at the time dislike Hughes writing style because he wrote about African Americans in an non-glamourous way. He wrote about their hardship and suffering as well as their successes. However, this embarrassed African Americans because they knew the possibility of white people reading it and they disliked the idea of white people knowing their weaknesses. Hughes, although he struggled, became the first African American to make his lively solely off his writing. Hughes continued to

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 influenced by people and events. The people that influenced him were Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman. He showed his poems to Vachel Lindsay who was impressed by his work. During the Spanish Civil War, he served as a war correspondent for several American newspapers. Later on, he was deemed the “Poet Laureate of the Negro Race.” All of these people and events inspired him to keep on writing.

The Harlem Renaissance was a period in American history, which occurred in the 1920s in Harlem, New York. The cultural movement was an opportunity for African Americans to celebrate their heritage through intellectual and artistic works. Langston Hughes, a famous poet, was a product of the Harlem Renaissance. One notable piece of literature by Hughes is “Dream Deferred”. However, the discussion of African American culture isn’t limited to the 1920s. Paul Laurence Dunbar showed the potential struggles of being African American in his poem “We Wear the Mask”, written fifty-five years prior to “Dream Deferred”. Both poems share similar tones and themes. “Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes can serve as a sequel to “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar through displaying a cause and effect relationship which highlights the strength of neglect and disguises.

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. He advocated many of these beliefs in his pieces.

He was deemed the poet laureate of the Negro race. A title which the man who fueled the Harlem renaissance deserved. His work include “the blues imp playing”, “dreams variations”, “Harlem mulatto”, sale on the black and “tambourines to glory”. He used dialect frequently on his uniquely formed poetry and music was also extremely important in his life. Jazz and bebop were both important in the structure of his writing. Langston was one of the earliest innovators of the new literary from called jazz poetry. He famously wrote about the period “the negro was in vogue’. It was later paraphrased as when Harlem was in vogue. Hughes tried it depict the law life in their art that is the real lives on black in the lower social-economic stanza. His poetry and fiction portrayed the lives of working class blacks in America he portrayed as full of joy laughter and music. He stressed a racial consciousness and culture nationalism devoid of self-hate. His thoughts united people of African descent and American across the globe to encourage pride in their diverse black folk culture and back aesthetic. Langston achieved fame endurance as a poet during the burgeoning of the arts known as the Harlem renaissance. Donald B. Gibson noted in the introduction to Modern Black Poets: A Collection of Critical Essays that Hughes "has perhaps the greatest reputation (worldwide) that any black writer has ever had. Hughes differed from most of his predecessors among black poets, and (until recently) from those who followed him as well, in that he addressed his poetry to the people, specifically to black people. During the twenties when most American poets were turning inward, writing obscure and esoteric poetry to an ever decreasing audience of readers, Hughes was turning outward, using language and themes, attitudes and ideas familiar to anyone who had the ability simply to read. He has been, unlike most nonblack poets other than Walt

In the poem “I, Too”, the author Langston Hughes illustrates the key aspect of racial discrimination faces against the African Americans to further appeals the people to challenge white supremacy. He conveys the idea that black Americans are as important in the society.

The Harlem Renaissance was an artistic and cultural movement during the 1920s and the 1930s. It was sparked by a migration of nearly one million African-Americans who moved to the prospering north to escape the heavy racism in the south and to partake in a better future with better tolerance. Magazines and newspapers owned by African-Americans flourished, poets and music artists rose to their feet. An inspiration swept the people up and gave them confidence.

It addressed the issues that were faced by African Americans in the United States during that time . Langston Hughes' poem encouraged people not to take the issue of democracy lightly and to fight for their rights. He did not directly talk about race, but a huge part of his work had to do with life for African Americans in the United States. Hughes was often criticized for portraying life in such a negative fashion. However, his writing was politicized, and as such, he sought to produce poems with a message. He showed that in order to get equal rights, one must fight as hard as they can and that usually things don't get handed

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. Therefore, the whole theme about this poem is everything is a mystery and a question and it will take years to potentially to find an answer.

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