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The Biography of Langston Hughes

Yanai Gonzalez

Ana G Mendez

November 17, 2022

The Biography of Langston Hughes

THE BIOGRAPHY OF LANGSTON HUGHES 2

On February 1, 1901, James Mercer Langston Hughes was born. He was born in

Joplin, Missouri, to James and Caroline Hughes, into a family of enslaved people and

enslavers (Leach, 2004). His father departed from the family, later divorcing their family,

forcing Langston's mother to move to Lawrence, Kansas, with his maternal grandmother. It

was from the latter that Langston learned about African American traditions, installing an

enormous sense of pride into the young man (Hughes et al., 2001). This greatly influenced his

writing, as evidenced by poems such as Mother to Son. He would then go on to join

Columbia University to study engineering, where he would write poetry for the Columbia

Daily Spectator. As a result of racial discrimination, he finally left the school and resided in

Harlem, where he was engulfed by the vibrant feeling of life (Leach, 2004).

Langston began cruising as a crewman aboard the S.S. Malone in 1923, after doing a

few odd jobs. He subsequently took his first white-collar job as Carter G. Woodson's assistant

at the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, a historian. He'd then

leave his work since it didn't enable him to write. He would later work as a busboy. He got

his big writing break when he met Vachel Lindsay, a famous poet of the time, with whom

Langston shared his poetry (Leach, 2004). Lindsay was heavily impressed and helped

Langston reach the big stage. Langston then went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree from

Lincoln University.

Langston began his literary career in 1921 by publishing The Crisis in the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People magazine (Leach, 2004). The poem

Mother to Son was in this book and would go on to get much acclaim. He would go on to

release The Weary Blues along with other novels, short stories, and poems (Hughes et al.,

2001). He participated heavily in the Harlem Renaissance. Langston would pass away on

May 22, 1967, from surgery complications while being treated for prostate cancer.

Mother To Son by Langston Hughes

THE BIOGRAPHY OF LANGSTON HUGHES 3

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

References

THE BIOGRAPHY OF LANGSTON HUGHES 4

Hughes, L., Hubbard, D., Sanders, L. C., Harper, D. S., & Tracy, S. C. (2001). The collected

works of Langston Hughes (Vol. 5). University of Missouri Press.

Leach, L. F. (2004). Langston Hughes: A Biography. Greenwood Publishing Group.

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