Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, and newspaper columnist. He is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance.

Hughes was born James Mercer Langston Hughes in Joplin, Missouri, the son of Carrie Langston Hughes, a teacher, and her husband, James Hughes. After a divorce, James Hughes left the United States for Mexico due to enduring racism. In Langston Hughes: An Introduction to the Poetry by Onwuchekwa Jemie, Hughes is quoted as saying that his father, a black man himself, "despised Negroes". This distant relationship with his father heavily influenced his work. After the separation of his parents, young Langston was raised mainly by his grandmother Mary Langston, a longtime activist. He spent most of childhood in Lawrence, Kansas, and he began to write poetry when he was 13. His childhood was not a happy one, but it was one that heavily influenced the poet he would become. He lived with his by-then-remarried mother as an adolescent in Lincoln, Illinois; it was there that he discovered his love of books. Upon graduating from high school in 1919, Hughes spent a year in Mexico with his father, but he was unhappy there and often contemplated suicide. His father did not support his ambition to write, believing that he would not be able to make a living at it....read more

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REST IN PEACE: (R.I.P.)