Early Years of Life Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri to James and Carrie Hughes in 1902.

 Langston went to spend the summer with his father in Mexico after graduating high school.  His father tried to persuade Langston from having a career in writing and to pursue a more practical career because he did not feel that Langston could make it as a writer.  From this point forward, Langston and his father had a difficult relationship and being painful, this helped Langston to mature.

 He attended Columbia University in  In 1925 he decided to finish his education and graduated with his B.A. degree in 1929 from Lincoln University.

 Hughes’ first published poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”.  First appeared in the Brownie’s Book.  This poem symbolized parts of his painful life.

 Central figure for this movement.  A movement of African- American literature beginning around 1923 and lasting until the depression.  Involved writers associated with Harlem.  Associated with the New Negro Movement, which had ideals of the Negro who is no longer apologetic for blackness but who takes a new pride in a racial identity and heritage.

 His poems, short plays, essays and short stories appeared in the NAACP publication Crisis Magazine and in Opportunity Magazine and other publications.  Hughes‘s "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” appeared in the Nation in 1926.

“MOTHER TO SON”  “Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”  Poem refers life to a staircase.  Uses metaphors and figurative language. “THE WEARY BLUES”  Poem with the setting in a Harlem bar.  About a musician playing blues on the piano and wears himself out.  Also describes black people and their struggle in the 30’s.

 Langston Hughes was a prolific writer.  In Hughes's poetry, he uses the rhythms of blues and jazz.

 He wrote sixteen books of poems, two novels, three collections of short stories, four volumes of "editorial" and "documentary" fiction, twenty plays, children's poetry, musicals and operas, three autobiographies, radio and television scripts and several of magazine articles. In addition, he edited seven anthologies.  Not Without Laughter (1930); The Big Sea (1940); I Wonder As I Wander" (1956), his autobiographies. His collections of poetry include: The Weary Blues (1926); The Negro Mother and other Dramatic Recitations (1931); The Dream Keeper (1932); Shakespeare In Harlem (1942); Fields of Wonder (1947); One Way Ticket (1947); The First Book of Jazz (1955); Tambourines To Glory (1958); and Selected Poems (1959); The Best of Simple (1961). He edited several anthologies hoping to make black authors and their works well-known. Some of these are: An African Treasury (1960); Poems from Black Africa (1963); New Negro Poets: USA (1964) and The Best Short Stories by Negro Writers (1967).

 Boerner, Gerald. “Langston Hughes in 1902.” Photo. boerner.net 10 February,  “Langston Hughes Pictures.” Photo. FANPIX.net.  Loeffelholz, Mary. (2007) Mother to Son and The Weary Blues. In Seventh (Ed.), The Norton Anthology of American Literature (pp ). New York, NY: W. W. Norton.