Transcript 1902 - 1967 Langston Hughes Speaking of Rivers November 11, 2008 Kent State University Presented by Thomas Carli Biography     Born James Mercer Langston Hughes on February 1, 1902

1902 - 1967
Langston Hughes
Speaking of Rivers
November 11, 2008
Kent State University
Presented by Thomas Carli
Biography
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Born James Mercer Langston Hughes on
February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri.
Because of his parents’ separation he lived
mainly with his maternal Grandmother in
Lawrence, Kansas.
Lived intermittently with his Mother in Detroit
and Cleveland as well as with his Father in
Mexico.
After finishing high school in Cleveland, Ohio
Hughes started writing poetry and left country
to live with his Father.
Biography
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Hughes’ Mother supported his poetry while his
business minded Father remained in a “deep,
scarring conflict” with the poet.
Entered Columbia University in 1920 but left
after only one year.
Worked as a merchant seaman and sailed to
Africa.
Worked at a nightclub in Paris.
Hughes was even a busboy in Washington D.C.
HugHes’ early Career
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While working various jobs in the early 1920s, Hughes
was writing and publishing his works in two major
African American periodicals: Opportunity and Crisis.
Eleven of Hughes’ poems were published in Dr. Alain
Locke’s The New Negro (1925).
In 1926 Hughes, with the patronage of Carl Van Vechten,
published The Weary Blues: Langston’s first volume of
poems.
Hughes’ essay “The Negro Aritist and the Racial
Mountain” appeared in the Nation (1926).
Also published in Countee Cullen’s anthology Caroling
Dusk (1927).
HugHes’ early Career
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Amy Springarn financed his college education at Lincoln
University in Pennsylvania.
Charlotte Mason subsidized him between 1928 and 1930
in New York City.
Following the publication of Not without Laughter in
1930, the sales and reputation Hughes gained enabled
him to support himself.
By the 1930s Hughes was being called “the bard of
Harlem.”
Became heavily involved with radical politics and
became a strong promoter of the American Communist
Party. (*Let America Be America Again)
HugHes’ Career
Visited the U.S.S.R. in 1932 and produced a lot
of radical writing up to the eve of World War II.
 The Great Depression brought an end to much
of the African American literary activity.
 In 1937, Hughes worked as a news
correspondent for the Baltimore AfroAmerican and covered the Spanish Civil War in
Madrid.
 By the late 1930s, Hughes began writing dramas
and screenplays as well as started writing an
autobiography.
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HugHes’ Career
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In 1943, he invented Jesse B. Semple, a folksy streetwise
character whose prose monologues on race were
eventually collected into four volumes of literature.
He also created Alberta K. Johnson, Semple’s female
equivalent, in his series of “Madam” poems.
Hughes published a variety of anthologies for children
and adults:
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First Book of Negroes (1952)
The First Book of Jazz (1955)
The Book of Negro Folklore (1958)
In 1953, Hughes was called to testify before Senator
Joseph McCarthy’s committee for his activities during
the 1930s; the FBI listed him as a security risk until 1959.
A Style All His Own
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Hughes modeled his stanza forms on the
improvisatory rhythms of jazz music and
adapted the vocabulary of everyday black
speech to poetry.
Focus of his work was on modern, urban black
life.
Acknowledged the influence of white American
poets such as Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg.
“Hughes did not confuse his pride in African
American culture with complacency toward the
material deprivations of black life in the United
States.”
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Click here to listen to Langston Hughes' The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Langston Hughes
Hughes biographer Milton Meltzer
“Cross”
remarked that when Hughes was
living with his grandmother, the book he treasured most was W. E. B.
Souls
ofMy
Black
Folk.
Langston
did notImention
old
man's
a whiteever.
old man
“IDuBois's
didn't The
think
about
being
aCuriously,
writer
I thought
might
Speaking
of Rivers
thisto
factbe
inaeither
of his
and
autobiographies.
my
old mother's
Yeta
black.
Meltzer
wrote
that Mary is
like
doctor,
you
know,
or else
streetcar
conductor,
Years later,
Hughes
would
reply:
Langston
frequently
If read
ever
Itocursed
her
grandson
my white
theold
first
man
lines from chapter 2
November
11,
2008
what
I
most
wanted
to
be,
because
at
that
time
you had a belt
of that book: "The problem
I take
of the
mytwentieth
curses back.
century is the problem of
American
Heartbreak
line,
I think, thatrelation
went of
all
around
town.
. . . That
a sort
the colorline,-the
the
darker
to the lighter
raceswas
of men
in of
aAsia
major
me the
forislands
a nickel
in those
days. further
You
andpleasure
Africa, in
If ride
America
ever Ifor
cursed
and
my
black
old
of the
mother
sea." Meltzer
I am the
American
heartbreakThomas
Carli
stated, I"Again
and I'd
again
and
Mary
wished
Langston
she were
read
in hell,
thoseor
words."(116)
And
know,
thought
like
toon
drive
streetcar
be a conductor
Rock
whichaFreedom
then-to
the boy the
whorest
was
I'mof
separated
sorry
for
that
from
evil
both
wish
parents, who was living
Stumps
its toeon
a streetcar
my
life.”
in bitter poverty, who feared
and The
now
that
I the
wish
"white
her well.
mortgage man" might take
great
mistake
away his only home, who at That
leastJamestown
once ran away from his strict
-Langston
Hughes
1965
grandmother, andMy
who
oldwas
man
regarded
diedlong
in aby
fine
white
big school
house.
systems and
Made
ago.
society alike as a social liability-then
My ma died Mary
in a shack.
Langston would ask him,
"How does it feel to be
I wonder
a problem?"(117)
where I'm gonna die,
being neither white nor black
1902 - 1967
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