What is langston hughes full name

We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain free within ourselves. His poetry and fiction portrayed the lives of the working-class blacks in America, lives he portrayed as full of struggle, joy, laughter, and music. Permeating his work is pride in the African-American identity and its diverse culture. Hughes stressed a racial consciousness and cultural nationalism devoid of self-hate.

His thought united people of African descent and Africa across the globe to encourage pride in their diverse black folk culture and black aesthetic. Hughes was one of the few prominent black writers to champion racial consciousness as a source of inspiration for black artists.

In addition to his example in social attitudes, Hughes had an important technical influence by his emphasis on folk and jazz rhythms as the basis of his poetry of racial pride. Skip to main content. Hughes spent the year after high school in Mexico with his father, who tried to discourage him from writing.

But Hughes's poetry and prose writings were beginning to appear in the Brownie's Book, a publication for children edited by W. Du Bois — , and he was starting work on more ambitious material for adult readers.

The poem "A Negro Speaks of River," which marked this development, appeared in the Crisis magazine in Meanwhile, the Crisis printed several more of his poems.

Finding the atmosphere at Columbia unfriendly, Hughes left after a year. He took on odd jobs in New York, and in he signed on to work on a freighter a large ship. His first voyage took him down the west coast of Africa; his second took him to Spain.

In he spent six months in Paris, France. He was relatively happy, produced Langston Hughes. Most of this verse poetry appeared in African American publications, but Vanity Fair, a magazine popular among middle-and upper-class women, published three poems. Later in Hughes went to live with his mother in Washington, D. He hoped to earn enough money to return to college, but work as a hotel busboy paid very little, and life in the nation's capital, where racial tensions were fierce, made him unhappy.

But he was able to write many poems. That summer one of his essays and another poem won prizes in the Crisis literary contest. Meanwhile, Hughes had come to the attention of Carl Van Vechten, a novelist and critic, who arranged publication of Hughes's first volume of poetry, The Weary Blues This book projected Hughes's lasting themes, established his style, and suggested the wide range of his poetic talent.

It showed him committed to racial themes—pride in blackness and in his African heritage, and the everyday life of African Americans—and democracy government ruled by the people and patriotism the support of one's country.

Hughes transformed the bitterness which such themes generated in many African Americans of the day into sharp irony and humor. His casual, folklike style was strengthened in his second book, Fine Clothes to the Jew Hughes had resumed his education in and graduated from Lincoln University in Not without Laughter was his first novel.

The story portrays an African American boy, Sandy, caught between two worlds and two attitudes. The boy's hardworking and respectable mother provides a counterpoint to his energetic, easygoing, footloose father.

The mother is oriented to the middle-class values of the white world; the father believes that fun and laughter are the only things worth pursuing. Though the boy's character is blurred, Hughes's attention to the details of African American culture in America gives the novel insight and power. The relative commercial success of Not without Laughter inspired Hughes to make his living as an author.

In he made the first of what became annual lecture tours. The following year he took a trip to the Soviet Union, the former country that today consists of Russia and other smaller nations.

Meanwhile, he turned out poems, essays, book reviews, song lyrics, plays, and short stories. Sterling A. Leslie Pinckney Hill. Jessie Redmon Fauset. Brown Sterling Brown was born in Washington, D.

He was educated. A graduate of Harvard Academy of American Poets Educator Newsletter. Teach This Poem. Follow Us. Find Poets. Poetry Near You. Jobs for Poets. Read Stanza. Privacy Policy. Press Center. First Book Award. James Laughlin Award. Ambroggio Prize.