Elijah Sanders
English 1020
Fall 2013
Biographical Research Essay Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. He was the second child of Caroline Langston and James Hughes. After his parents' divorce his father left the country for Mexico and then Cuba to escape the racism of American society. After his divorce his mother traveled looking for work leaving Langston to be raised by his Grandmother in Lawrence, Kansas. Langston Hughes later lived with his mother again along with his new step-father in Cleveland, Ohio where he attended high school. In high school Hughes was elected to be the class poet. he felt that he was only chosen because he was African-American. "I was the victim of a stereotype. there were only two of us negro kids in the whole class and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry well, everyone knows, except us, that all negroes have rhythm, so they elected me as class poet." Hughes grew up and lived in an extremely racist time. he came from a long line of ant-slavery and also very politically active people on his mother's side. Hughes also had his own opinions on politics. like many black writers and artists of this time Hughes was drawn to the idea of communism rather than segregated America and lots of his work reflected that. his poetry was often published in the CPUSA newspaper. he was involved in many communist led organizations though was more of a sympathizer than an active participant. Hughes was accused by many of being a communist on the political right but he always denied it. The poem I chose to write about is "Negro" by Langston Hughes. this poem was written during the Harlem renaissance when racial pride was represented heavily in things like art and literature. this poem represents the struggles that African-Americans at this time were going through and had been through. Hughes makes