Langston Hughes: Thinkers Of The Harlem Renaissance

Langston Hughes was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was an African-American cultural movement that focused on literature, music, theater, art, and politics. He has become most famous for how he portrays Black life in America. His writings told stories of the black American experience and a lot of his work has influenced the Black Arts Movement of the 1920’s. Langston was born February 1, 1902, in Missouri. he stayed with his grandmother because his mother moved around a lot while he was young. Although his family did a lot of moving, Hughes was a good student and excelled in his studies. Hughes real name is James Mercer Langston Hughes, the first signs of Hughes talent began

in the eighth grade. As a young child, he was lonely and turned to reading and writing.

during his senior year at Central High School in Cleveland, Ohio, he was voted class poet and editor of the yearbook. Langston wrote for his school magazine and tried writing for other magazines but got denied. one of Hughes teachers first introduced him to the poetry of Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman, which really influenced him in his writing. His poetry was loud and emotional in conveying his idea of the African-American dream. Most of his poetry either states how the black man is being suppressed or is a wish, a plea for equality. He does not want the black man to be better than everyone else, but just to be treated equal. His literary works helped shape American literature and politics. Hughes, like others in the Harlem Renaissance, had a strong sense of racial pride. Through his poetry, novels, plays, essays, and children's books, he promoted equality, condemned racism, and injustice, and celebrated African American culture, humor, and spirituality. He published his first poem in 1921 and published his first book in 1926. Langston enrolled at Columbia University to study engineering because that’s what his father wanted, he realized that wasn’t where his heart was and dropped

out.
The poem "Theme for English B" really caught my attention out of all Langston Hughes poems because he expresses his feelings towards racial stereotypes in a paper his teacher assigns. He projects a sense of struggle for identity within the world he is a part of. He states “I am the only colored student in my class.” which already illustrates how different he is viewed by all the othe people around him. His teacher is not colored, yet Langston speaks on how they are still the same. in this poem, he is different physically, he possesses the same human characteristics as his classmates and the instructor. Hughes speaks on the African American struggle for equality but through imagery, style, language, tone, and repetition, he also makes the reader feel as they’re in the narrator position because he mentions the inner thoughts of the colored student. His paper shows exactly how an African-American man feels, acts and what he does in everyday life. The point that Hughes tries to get across to his teacher is clear. He, the black man, likes and does the same things as the white man. Hughes likes to "eat, sleep, drink, and be in love" and "work, read, learn, and understand life" presumably just as the instructor or any other person, either colored or white, enjoys. Hughes wonders if his paper will be graded differently because he is black. Throughout the poem there is a sense of irony and sarcasm. In the poem, he says, "I guess being colored doesn't make me not like the same things other people like who are other races. “So, will my page be colored that I write?” (27). The poem gives a powerful message, the poem talks about the American life at a certain period and how the whites treated the blacks. We should not judge people by their skin color but according to what they are.