Full Name: James Mercer Langston Hughes Born: February 1,1902 Died: May 22,1967 Birthplace: Joplin,Missouri Mother: Carrie Langston Hughes Father: James Nathaniel Hughes Graduated: June of 1920
When he was just a child Langston's parent separated and he was raised by his grandmother while his mother looked for work. He learned of the storytelling of Afro Americans and lived most of his life in Kansas. He lived with his relatives and friends once his grandmother died. He might have had a bad childhood but his life inspired his carrer as a poet. He later moved back with his mother in Illinois where she remarried and he was a teen. In high school he was a designated poet for his classroom. He believed he was chosen because his race and he was a victim of stereotype. During high school he did things like write in the school newspaper, edited the yearbook, and began to write his first short stories, poetry, and dramatic plays. Due to his problems and issues with his father he contemplated suicide. After he graduated he went back to Mexico trying to convince his dad to pay for college and they disagreed on the terms of it but came to a compromise. The compromise was that he studied engineering long as he went to Columbia but he dropped out due to prejudice. He was in many organizations one of them was the Afro American Gay and Lesbian Archive at the Schomburg Center.