Langston Hughes was born on February 1st, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. His parents got divorced while he was at a young age and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his grandmother till the age of thirteen and then moved to Lincoln, Illinois to live with his mother and her new husband. Eventually the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio. Hughes also settled with his father, whom he dislike, in Mexico for 1 year during this time some of his greatest work was created. He attended Columbia University and was the only African American in his class and this greatly disappointed Hughes. Hughes greatly suffered racism because of his white lineage but he continued to write for blacks unlike other poets before him. He had a voice, and was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance.
As a writer he, more than any other black poet or writer, discussed nuances of black life and frustrations he states that his poetry is about
"workers, roustabouts, and singers, and job hunters on Lenox Avenue in New York, or Seventh Street in Washington or South State in Chicago-people up today and down tomorrow, working this week and fired the next, beaten and baffled, but determined not to be wholly beaten, buying furniture on the installment plan, filling the house with roomers to pay the rent, hoping to get a new suit for Easter- and pawning the suit before the Fourth of July."
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