The Legacy Of Langston Hughes's Poetry

Micah Sloan

Honors English I

Mrs. Lopez

18 September 2015

For many people a life of obstacles would be impossible to overcome. For Langston Hughes he conquered these obstacles and became the famous poet from the Harlem Renaissance read today. Langston Hughes dedicated his poems to the pride, struggles, and dreams of African American people, and his legacy continues to be felt today.

In Joplin, Missouri, in 1902, Langston Hughes was born, and started experiencing a series of obstacles in his early lifetime (“Langston Hughes”, All poetry). The first major obstacle was when Hughes’ mother and father split up and ”From 1903 to 1915 he lived mostly in Lawrence with his grandmother” ; his father moved to Mexico while his mother moved to Illinois

Poets like Whitman, Dunbar, McKay, and Sandburg all inspired Langston Hughes to be become the memorable writer that he is now. Sandburg had a larger impact on Langston Hughes life in literature because he wrote poems in a socialists point of view which at the time had segregated everything(Rampersad,, “Hughes's Life and Career”). Hughes also was inspired by the jazz and blues music at the time(“Langston Hughes”, Poets.org). The Culture of the blacks during the harlem renaissance was much harder than the whites because whites had better schools and could eat in all restaurants unlike blacks who sometimes had to eat scraps in the alley behind the restaurant(“Langston Hughes Biography”, Bio.com). This inspired langston hughes to write his poetry about the culture of black men and women during the Harlem renaissance.Using the poems short stories and books Langston Hughes wrote about, he captured the attention of all

In 1921 The Negro Speaks of Rivers (Tyle, “Langston Hughes”).Another four years later he released The Weary Blues in 1925(“Langston Hughes Biography”, Bio.com). In twelves years after that he realised Fine Clothes to the Jew, his first book Not Without Laughter, and his first collection of short stories, The Ways of White Folk(“Langston Hughes Biography”, Bio.com). Hughes began getting known very quick after his first book. Following his first book the short stories he wrote began getting read by everyone because they were in the newspaper, Not long after he made a comic for the newspaper, and the character was called “Simple”(Tyle, “Langston Hughes”). Eleven years after his comic he wrote the poem Dream Deferred which became his most largely known for poem he’d ever written. These many works he created himself a legacy that still lives on