Prejudice And Racism In Langston Hughes Harlem Renaissance

Throughout this course on the literature of the New Negro Renaissance many topics have been discussed. A common theme seen in most of the readings viewed was the effects of racism on the African American population of the United States. The poet and writer Langston Hughes touches upon this subject in many of his poems and essays written throughout the Harlem Renaissance. This theme of racism effecting African American life is very prevalent in Hughes’ poem “America”. Langston Hughes was an African American poet and writer. He was born as James Mercer Langston Hughes on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. After he was born his parents separated, which resulted in Hughes being primarily raised by his maternal grandmother. As a teenager, his

Through the decade of the 1930’s Hughes traveled all over the United States on lecture tours. Hughes also traveled to the Soviet Union, Japan and Haiti. In 1934 Hughes released his first collection of short stories, The Ways of White Folks. Two years later Hughes published the very popular poem, “Let America Be America Again”. In 1937 Hughes served a war correspondent for many United States based newspapers during the Spanish Civil War. Hughes wrote his first autobiography in 1940 entitled The Big Sea. During this same time Hughes was a contributor to the famous African American newspaper, “The Chicago Defender”. During the latter part of the 1940’s Hughes contributed lyrics to the Broadway musical “Street Scene”. Hughes then bought a home in Harlem and he became a guest lecturer at Atlanta University and in Chicago. In 1949 Hughes wrote a poem that inspired the opera “Troubled Island” and he also wrote another book of poetry entitled The Poetry of the Negro. In the year of 1951 Hughes wrote his most famous poem “Harlem”. The poem’s contents inspired the play “A Raisin in the Sun” which was later turned into a film in 1961 starring Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee. In the 1960’s Hughes wrote the second