What makes langston hughes famous

For his own pioneering scholarship, Dr. It coordinates and develops teaching, research and outreach activities in African-American Studies, and the study of race and culture in American society at KU and throughout the Midwest. This program attracts prominent ethnic minority scholars to the campus in a broad range of disciplines. The Langston Hughes Professor teaches two courses a semester and delivers a campus-wide symposium.

Additionally, several past recipients are now tenured faculty members at KU. Image courtesy of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library Hughes helped Woodson catalog new and noteworthy experiences and achievements of African Americans. Related Poets. Countee Cullen. Alice Dunbar-Nelson. James Weldon Johnson. Arna Bontemps. Sterling A. Leslie Pinckney Hill. Brown Sterling Brown was born in Washington, D. He was educated. A graduate of Harvard Academy of American Poets Educator Newsletter.

Teach This Poem. Follow Us. It connects the soul and heritage of the Black community to four great rivers in the Middle East, Africa, and America. In this way, the poem traces the journey of Blacks and links this community to the birth of civilization. Hughes stresses the historical existence of the African race and their movement through time.

It shows the impact that Blacks have had in past eras. Hughes goes back to the ancient times to show that Negro has been slave from a long time. He also lets the reader know about the remarkable things built by them in the past.

By doing so he claims that Negroes had been instrumental in civilization all through the history,. In this poem a Negro mother addresses her past struggles to her children. This poem is, in fact, an attempt by Hughes to reach out to African Americans. There is no doubt that Langston Hughes is truly a representative of the African Americans and their heritage. His poems reflect all the events and circumstances experienced by African Americans since ages and, particularly, in 19th century America.

Social injustice is one the major themes that permeate Langston Hughes poetry. His poems explain unfair social conditions and inequalities that African Americans had to face at that time. All these poems depict injustice suffered by Blacks and their hope for social equality. Hughes uses poetry as a medium to encourage his people to fight for equality and social justice. He urges them to resist the white tyranny and mend their ways.

He also encourages them to dream of an America where there will reign love, peace, freedom and equality among all races. These poems have come from his own personal experiences and reflect his ideology in overcoming the race issue.

Through his works, Hughes condemns racism and social injustice and promotes equality. He celebrates African American culture, spirit, and unification. They also focus on the different issues faced by African Americans while struggling to fulfill this dream. Hughes depicts that due to racism and inequality, the American Dream has become hard to achieve for his people.

It is the set of ideals which gives equal opportunities to every American, without considering his race or color.

After the abolition of slavery, while white Americans were fulfilling their vision of the American Dream, African Americans still not considered as part of this dream. The American Dream was regarded merely as a myth for them. As a poet of the people, Langston Hughes attempts to change America to the best.

His poetry explains the struggles of African American people to achieve the American Dream. Hughes endeavors to revive the promised glories of life and liberty as well as the pursuit of happiness guaranteed by the American Dream.

He depicts the dream of the blacks to be part of the American nation. The success of the musical would earn Hughes enough money that he was finally able to buy a house in Harlem. Around this time, he also taught creative writing at Atlanta University today Clark Atlanta University and was a guest lecturer at a university in Chicago for several months.

Over the next two decades, Hughes would continue his prolific output. In he wrote a play that inspired the opera Troubled Island and published yet another anthology of work, The Poetry of the Negro. In Hughes published one of his most celebrated poems, "Harlem What happens to a dream deferred? What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore — And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over— Like a syrupy sweet? Literary scholars have debated Hughes' sexuality for years, with many claiming the writer was gay and included a number of coded references to male lovers in his poems as did Walt Whitman, a major influence on Hughes. Hughes never married, nor was he romantically linked to any of the women in his life. And several of Hughes' friends and traveling companions were known or believed to be gay, including Zell Ingram, Gilbert Price and Ferdinand Smith.

Other biographers have refuted these claims, but because of Hughes' secrecy and the era's homophobia surrounding openly gay men, there is no concrete evidence of Hughes' sexuality.