1. Langston Hughes

2. Born in Joplin, Missouri, 1902 Parents separated when he was a child He was alienated from his father. Lived in seven different cities (including Lawrence, KS) before High School. 1919, graduated from Central High School in Cleveland, OH. 1921, published his first poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.”

3. Langston Hughes 1922-23, sailed to Africa and Europe as a mess steward on freighters.  also spent time in France and Italy. 1924, discovered by Vachel Lindsay while working in a Washington, D.C. hotel as a busboy.

4. Langston Hughes 1925-30, attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Published two volumes of jazz poems. Traveled throughout the South reading at colleges and universities. 1931, published Not Without Laughter, his 1 st novel. It is about his years in Lawrence.

5. Langston Hughes 1931, his patrons insisted that he work with his friend, Zora Neale Hurston. They had a fight over the authorship of the novel Mule Bone. Langston used money from novel sales to escape to Cuba. 1932, traveled to USSR  became a Marxist, and then returned to America. 1937, traveled to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War for Baltimore’s Afro-American newspaper.

6. Langston Hughes Supported himself as a writer for the rest of his life. Mostly journalistic, but some literature. Was the 1 st African American to do so in the U.S. 1960, was named the “Poet Laureate of the Negro race” by his patrons. Died in 1967. Not until the late 1970’s and early 1980’s was he widely accepted as a significant voice of African- Americans.