Langston Hughes: A Unique American Voice
Langston Hughes, born James Mercer Langston Hughes, in Joplin, Missouri on February 1, 1902, was a vital part of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s and was a man who used his unique understanding of what it meant to be a black American throughout his career as a poet, novelist, playwright, and newspaper columnist (Wikipedia, 1). Though a success in terms of his career, Hughes encountered numerous hardships as he developed his own "voice." These hardships included the burden of racism, the separation of his parents, his unhappy relationship with his father, and his own homosexuality which he hid for all of his life (Glbtq.com, 1). This essay will argue that these specific hardships shaped Hughes' poetry and work.
Hughes was raised largely his maternal grandmother after his parents separated. Even then, Hughes was well aware of the racism that permeated the United States. His grandmother was the widow of Lewis Sheridan Leary, one of the men who participated in John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859 (Meyer Literature, 1). As a child, Hughes learned from his maternal grandmother stories of the African-American experience which he celebrated in his writings which were themselves "frankly racial in theme and treatment (Meyer Literature, 1). Consequently, Hughes understood racism and oppression which he also experienced as an adult in cities such as New York and Chicago as well as during his youth in Kansas.
Hughes' parents separated largely because his father, James Nathaniel Hughes, could not cope with the racial prejudice and economic frustration that were the result of his own black and white racial ancestry. Langston and his mother, Carrie, were abandoned by James Hughes, who left Joplin, Missouri to find work in Mexico where he hoped the color of his skin would be less of an issue than it was in the United States (Meyer Literature, 1).
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