Biography of Langston Hughes

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The well known poet Langston Hughes was an inspiring character during the Harlem Renaissance to provide a push for the black communities to fight for the rights they deserved. Hughes wrote his poetry to deliver important messages and provide support to the movements. When he was at a young age a teacher introduced him to poets Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman, and they inspired him to start his own. Being a “darker brother,” as he called blacks, he experienced and wanted his rights, and that inspired him. Although literary critics felt that Langston Hughes portrayed an unattractive view of black life, the poems demonstrate reality. Hughes used the Blues and Jazz to add effect to his work as well as his extravagant word use and literary tools help get the point he is pushing at across. Pieces of his work that demonstrate this the best are “Harlem(Dream Deferred),” “I, Too,” and “The Backlash Blues.”
Hughes life was filled with accomplishments one after another that contributed to the awareness of unpleasantness in the black life to change America. Langston Hughes was born James Mercer Langston Hughes February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri to James Hughes and Carrie Langston. Hughes’ mother had to move a lot for during his young age and lived with his grandmother until she died when he was in his teens. Because he had no one else close to live with he went back with his mother. They moved a lot from city to city until finally settling in Cleveland, Ohio. It was this event that sparked his interest in poetry because one of his high school teachers introduced Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman, who were his main inspirations. He moved to Mexico with his dad after he graduated from high school in 1920 Near that time his first poem “...

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...il Rights Movements to fight for their equality. Today

Works Cited

Constantakis, Sara. "I' Too." . Cengage Learning, 1 Jan. 2009. Web. 6 May 2014.
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"Criticism on "I' Too"." . Norton & Company, Inc., 1 Jan. 2014. Web. 6 May 2014. .

Hanson, Tom. "On "Harlem"." . Department of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1
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"James Mercer Langston Hughes." 2014. The Biography.com website. Apr 14
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Tracy, Steven. "On "The Backlash Blues"." . Department of English, University of Illinois at
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