James+Langston+Hughes

**James Langston Hughes** (1902- 1967) uagreeks.uark.edu/images/Langston_Hughes.jpg   Date of birth: February first 1902

date of death: May twenty second 1967

born in: Joplin, Missouri, USA

Profession: Poet

schools attended: Central High School (Cleveland, Ohio) Fact:In eighth grade when Langston first started writing poetry he was voted the " Class Poet". Columbia University. Fact: his father only agreed to pay tuition to University if he studied engineering. Langston laters drops out of the program with all "B's".

First Published poem: "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" ( one of his most famous one) Fact: It appeared in The Brownies Book. His Later work was also featured in NAACP magazines James' influences had been jazz. He had said he wished he could write poems like the singers on 7th street.

"We younger Negro artists now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren't, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too... If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, as strong as we know how and we stand on the top of the mountain, free within ourselves." Says Langston on being a black poet.

Langston Hughes Had Been awarded an honorary Lit.D by his alma mater; a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1935 and a Rosenwald Fellowship in 1940, It was one of his acheivements.

In comparison to Shel Silverstein both had been black poets but has covered different topics in their poetry. Shel had been a childrens poet mostly where as Langston was more adult.