Langston Hughes

“James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901– May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period that ‘the Negro was in vogue’, which was later paraphrased as ‘when Harlem was in vogue.^‘  … In addition to poetry, Hughes wrote plays, and short stories. He also published several non-fiction works. From 1942 to 1962, as the civil rights movement was gaining traction, he wrote an in-depth weekly column in a leading black newspaper, The Chicago Defender. … His poetry and fiction portrayed the lives of the working-class blacks in America, lives he portrayed as full of struggle, joy, laughter, and music. Permeating his work is pride in the African-American identity and its diverse culture. ‘My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind’, Hughes is quoted as saying. He confronted racial stereotypes, protested social conditions, and expanded African America’s image of itself; a ‘people’s poet’ who sought to reeducate both audience and artist by lifting the theory of the black aesthetic into reality. … With the gradual advance toward racial integration, many black writers considered his writings of black pride and its corresponding subject matter out of date. They considered him a racial chauvinist. He found some new writers, among them James Baldwin, lacking in such pride, over-intellectual in their work, and occasionally vulgar. … He understood the main points of the Black Power movement of the 1960s, but believed that some of the younger black writers who supported it were too angry in their work. Hughes’s work Panther and the Lash, posthumously published in 1967, was intended to show solidarity with these writers, but with more skill and devoid of the most virulent anger and racial chauvinism some showed toward whites. …”
Wikipedia
Langston Hughes’ Former Home Is Now a Community for Harlem Artists
NY Times:A Walk Through Harlem, New York’s Most Storied Neighborhood
Harlem to Havana: Langston Hughes Helped a Nation Connect to Its African Roots
10 of the Best Langston Hughes Poems Everyone Should Read