James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced when he was young, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, then moved to Lincoln, Illinois to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Lincoln, Illinois, that Hughes began writing poetry. After graduating, he spent a year in Mexico and a year at Columbia University. During these years, he worked odd jobs as a kitchen helper, laundryman and busboy, and traveled to Africa and Europe as a sailor. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, DC. Hughes's first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He completed his college studies at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930, his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon Gold Medal for Literature. Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful and colorful depictions of black life in America from the 1920s to the 1960s. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, such as in "Montage of a Dream Deferred". His life and work played an extremely important role in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the era – Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen – Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in a way that reflected their current culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself. Hughes and his contemporaries were often in conflict with the goals and aspirations of the black community. class, and all three considered Harlem Renaissance midwives WEB Du Bois, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Alain Locke, whom they accused of being too accommodating and assimilating Eurocentric values ​​and culture for equality social. The main conflicts were depictions of "lower life", that is, the real lives of black people in lower socio-economic strata, and superficial divisions and prejudices based on skin color within the black community..