Tazz Gaskin

11/01/2015

Fall 2015

AF. Am. HUM

A Life Worth Living

“He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool. Sweet Blues! Coming from a black

man’s soul.”(87). This quote from Langston Hughes, ​”The Weary Blues”​, one of his first works

of published poetry, gives a great definition of who he was as what was known to most as “The

Shakespeare of Harlem.” Langston Hughes contributed more than just poetry to the struggle of

Civil Liberties of the African American struggle. From his own past, to his work in the Harlem

Renaissance, all the way down to his death, Langston Hughes continues, to this day even, to

move people’s soul and enlighten them to what not only his own trails and tribulation, but

African American’s as a people suffering and pain. Through words, Hughes brought a new look

upon African Americans in Society.

James Mercer Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri.

To James Mercer Hughes and Carrie Langston-Hughes. Once Hughes was born his

parents separated, with his father moving to Mexico and became a prosperous landowner,

businessman, and lawyer. Hughes’ mother, which has a passion for the arts, moved to

where the work took her. Carrie took Hughes to live in Topeka, Kansas. Where she

preferred for her son to go to a white school, until she lost her job and had to take Hughes
to live with his grandmother. Langston Hughes was raised by his grandmother, Mary, in

Lawrence, Kansas. Mary would tell Hughes “oral traditions” about the African American

heroic journey to freedom, liberty and justice. After Mary’s death in 1914, Hughes, in his

early teens, would be sent back to live with his mother in Lincoln, Illinois. This would be

where Langston Hughes would read his first poem at his elementary school graduation

ceremony and be elected class poet. They bounced around for a while before finally

moving to Cleveland, Ohio. Langston Hughes would attend high school and develop a

sharp sense in art, music, and poetry and earned a spot as the editor of the yearbook.

After Graduating high school, Hughes went to live with his father in Mexico.

Hughes would teach the children of the wealth Mexican English. Despite the fact that his

father wanted Hughes to go out into the world to study and progress his education. In

1921 Hughes enrolled in Columbia University, not long after that Hughes would get his

poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” Published in “The Crisis” magazine edited by

W.E.B. Du Bois. One year later Hughes left Columbia University because of the

discrimination and bigotry he faced while studying there. Eventually Hughes would move

to Harlem working many different jobs from cabin boy to bus boy.

The Cabin Boy job took Hughes to places that he had never been such as West

Africa, and Europe where he met writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Richard Wright,

Lillian Hellman, and Theodore Dreiser. In 1924 when Hughes returned to the United

States, he lived with his mother in Washington, D.C. where he would get a job an

assistant for Cater G. Woodson, a black Historian. “Then in 1925, Hughes would work

for a hotel as a bus boy, where he would discovered by a famous poet of the time Vachel
Lindsay, who named him the ‘Bus Boy Poet’. As a Result Hughes received a scholarship

to Lincoln University.” (​www.Americaslibary.gov​). From 1947 until his death in 1965

Hughes, from Harlem, would bless the world with his sense of African American culture,

fury, pain, and suffering.

The history of Langston Hughes and his different jobs, homes, and settings give a

new insight to why he was so diverse not only as a writer but in society as well. But most

of all that diversity allowed Hughes to work his way from a “Bus Boy Poet to the

“Shakespeare of Harlem”. A name deriving from his published works during the Harlem

Renaissance (1917-1935). The Harlem Renaissance, was one of the most prominent

artistic African American literary movements of all time. It provoked African Americans

to come out and express themselves in a way that society had never seen before. With his

short stories, plays , and most of all his poems, Langston Hughes would break out front

with a determined mind and a power to move people with expressions that would give

African Americans, not only a new look at themselves but also, a new outlet for their pain

and suffering as well as society’s look on African Americans. With WWI just ending and

African Americans new found freedom, the fleet from the racist south to the north gave

way to a “New Negro Movement”. In which African Americans now demanded civil and

political rights; Hughes at this time began to put the rhythm of jazz and blues to his

poems, gave Hughes words new dimension not only in the black community but the

white community and the United States as a whole. And with this new found identity

African Americans would get behind Hughes and his work. A pioneer of modern black

literature, Langston Hughes devoted his life and different styles of writing to depict the
 language, attitudes and experiences, of everyday African American life. Hughes work

gave way to the new look that American would give to black people. From chains and

slavery and being someone’s property to being seen as an equal member of society with

some of the same people that used to own you or even worse not know you at all; but still

did not like you because of your skin color , this was unthinkable back in the 1600’s. But

in the early 1920’s the Harlem Renaissance was taking on a found light for black people

and the poet to capture it in words was Langston Hughes. Such as the poem from his

work “​The Langston Hughes Reader ​“entitled, “Tell Me”. Says,

“Why should it be my loneliness?

Why should it be my song?

Why should it be my dreams?

Deferred

Overlong?”(96)

Which is basically saying “Tell me” why should it be me that’s “[lonely]”, why should it be my

“song” that don’t get sung, why should it be my “dream” that gets “Deferred, [overtime]”. These

words that Hughes uses to asked these questions with very little detail but the meaning and

thought behind the words of that time were quite impressive. Only because Hughes was able to

use very little to say so much. No man of that time could put simple words and complicated

times together and make it not only make sense but reach out to make you think about what he

was really trying to say.

 The work of Langston Hughes was not an easy one, especially for someone of his color at

the time. To write stories, plays, and poems. Publish them throughout the nation and actually

make a difference in society. Hughes ultimately paved the way for African Americans to really

express themselves through writing and be proud to express blacks as a “people”, and express

them in the struggles that they had to face with discrimination, racism, and prejudice. A great

example of this would be in Hughes work “NOT A MOVIE”, published in “​The Langston

Hughes Reader”.​ Says;

“Well they rocked him with road-apples because he tried to vote

And whipped his head with clubs

And he crawled on his knees to hi house

And he got the midnight train

And he crossed that Dixie line

Now he’s livin’ on a 133rd.

[S]ix knot were on his head

But thank God, he wasn’t dead, and there aint no Ku Klux on 133​rd​.

This poem describes some of the brutality that African Americans had to face not only to “Vote”

but to live period. Colored people have always had to be scared to sleep because they didn’t

know when the Ku Klux Klan would ride through burning crosses, burning homes, raping

women, killing men, hanging men, these horrible tragic moments were a daily experience for

African Americans. Hughes understood that and decide to express his sympathy for them
through his work. While Hughes was not the only member of the Harlem Renaissance. He, in my

mind and most of the world, was the most influential player of the Harlem Renaissance.

The ways Hughes led his life was an example of how African Americans can truly go

from nothing to everything. Langston Hughes to this day has inspired me to continue to write

poetry and express myself not only as a poet but as an African American community. Such

expression comes from one of my favorite poems from Hughes entitled​ “THE NEGRO SPEAKS

OF RIVERS”. ​In this poem Hughes explains;

“I’ve known rivers:

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I build my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve

seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve know many rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers. (88)

This poem to me is a reflection of myself because the word “rivers” in this poem, to me, means

all of the different situations that have made him the man he was. The part of the poem that
states, “[a] ND I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.”(88). Just tells me that

through all the pain and dark times Hughes had to face he knew that it would turn out to be

“golden” in the Morning because tomorrow was a new day and This to me is why James Mercer

Langton Hughes would become and still to this day is an influential person not only to the

African American Community but any poet that want to be an even better poet, or a person that

wants to be a poet. Hughes inspires every one to express themselves through art. Whether it

would be music, painting, poetry, books, and movies. Whatever your talent in the arts may be.

Go forth with your dreams and never take no for an answer.

Langston Hughes contributed many different aspects to society through his work, but

most importantly he influenced many different races, and background and found the common

ground where they could all speak the same language. POETRY…..

In conclusion, I would like to leave with a poem inspired by this class Entitled

“​A life Worth Living”

Every day I wake up and wonder…. What is today going to bring?

Am I going to be all that I can be? Or if I’m going to see the end of me?

I try my best everyday…. Just to make this pain go away…

But finally I wake up and see…. That I have to be all that I can be...
 Because “I” need to see the best in me and because someone is looking at me…

The LEADER, the ROLE MODEL, the FRIEND….

Someone who will be there for you until the end…

Even when the road seems tough, I still have to endure…. Because through the test of time and

the test of life

And Even through misery and strife…. Living life has taught me how to be…..

And put me in a place where I can be…. Be all that I want to be. And more…

But even when it seems hard and the bumps in the road make you want to quit….

Just remember these words:

YOU BEGAN WITH THE END IN MIND AND YOUR SUCCESS WILL LAST A LIFETIME

This poem tells just a little like Hughes did, the story of me, and the expression, also like

Hughes, brings out the true feeling and emotion that I would like to convey to the audience

reading it. This is what Hughes like to do he would speak with such words that you would

literally feel them. No man could ever fill Langston Hughes shoes but I plan as Hughes would

tell to, to make your own shoes. And design them to your liking. “Never let your mind destroy

your hearts dream of expression”. (Sergio Gaskin).

 Bibliography:

1. Marable, Manning and Leith Muling. ​Let Nobody Turn Us Around.​ New York: Roman &
Littlefield publishers, 2009.
2. Bloom, Harold. ​Langston Hughes​. New York: Brain L. Johnson, 2007-2008.
3. CONGRESS, LIBRARY OF. ​WWW.AMERICASLIBRARY.GOV​. 26 OCTOBER 2015.
26 OCTOBER 2015.
4. Congress, Library of. ​WWW.LOC.gov/Langston Hughes.​ 16 July 2000. 10 October 2015.
5. Hughes, Langston. ​The Langston Hughes Reader​. New York: alfred A. Knopf, 1958.
6. INC., BRITANICA ENCYCLOPEDIA. ​WWW.ENCYCLOPEDIA.COM​. DECEMBER
1999. 26 10 2015.
7. UNIVERSITY, PRINCTON. ​WWW.PRINCETON.EDU.​ JANUARY 2004. 26
OCTOBER 2015.
8. WWW.Poetryfoundation.org​. August 1990. 26 October 2015.