Langston Hughes (James Mercer Langston Hughes) was a poet, diarist, playwright, essayist, lyricist and novelist. He was an early innovator of the literary art form called jazz poetry. Hughes, like others, was active in the Harlem Renaissance and he felt a strong sense of racial pride. Through his poems, novels, short stories, plays, and children's books, he promotes equality, condemns racism and injustice, and celebrates African American culture and humor. (Illinois). Langston Hughes was the son of Carrie Mercer Langston and James Nathaniel Hughes. He was born February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. Langston Hughes grew up in a series of small towns in the Midwest. Hughes' father divorced Langston's mother, Carrie. His father later traveled to Mexico and Cuba, seeking to escape the worsening racism in the United States. After her parents separated, her mother looked for a job; his grandmother raised young Langston. He spent most of his childhood in Lawrence, Kansas. After his grandmother died, he went to live with her family friends. James and Mary Reed for two years. Langston lived very sadly with his grandmother; he even expressed his grief in several of his poems. In “The Big Sea,” he wrote: “I was unhappy for a long time and very lonely, living with my grandmother. » (Poetry Vol. 13). Later, Hughes lived with his mother in Lincoln, Ohio. She had remarried when he was a child; the family eventually lived in Cleveland, Ohio, where he attended high school. While Langston was in high school, Hughes wrote for the school newspaper. Some of his major early influences were Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg, as well as black poets Paul Laurence Dunbar, who mastered both dialect and standard verse. Claude McKay, a radical...... middle of paper ...... died following abdominal surgery, related to prostate cancer, at the age of 65. His ashes are buried under a medallion on the ground in the middle of the foyer of the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. It is the entrance to an auditorium that bears his name. Langston Hughes was perhaps the most original of African-American poets in terms of the breadth and variety of his work, certainly the most representative of African-American writers. (Purdue). Works Cited “The Life and Career of Hughes – by Arnold Rampersad”. The Life and Career of Hughes--by Arnold Rampersad. Np, and Web. April 16, 2014. “Langston Hughes.” Langston Hughes. Np, and Web. April 16, 2014. “Langston Hughes.” Langston Hughes. Np, and Web. April 16, 2014. “Langston Hughes.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, nd Web. April 18, 2014.PBS. PBS and Web. April 16. 2014.