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Top 20 Remarkable Facts about Langston Hughes

Originally published by Charity K in March 2022. Updated by Charity K in May 2023 and Updated by Charity K in January 2024.

James Mercer Langston Hughes was born on the 1^st of February, 1902 in Joplin Missouri, United States. He was an American poet, novelist, social activist, playwright, and columnist. He studied at Colombia University and Lincoln University.

The interesting part of his life is that he never married and thus had no children.

There is no record of Hughes having a firm relationship with anyone. He was a worldwide tourist who visited several countries around the world.

His poems were so much influential and aimed at standing against racism. He was a writer who began his work while still a 17-year-old teenager and became committed to it for his entire life.

He died on the 22^nd of May, 1967 in Stuyvesant Polyclinic due to complications of a carried-out surgery for prostate cancer.

Moreover, he is considered to be the Jazz music pioneer for the music mimics his poetry rhyme scheme.

Other than poetry, he was a reporter by profession who worked for the African-American newspaper and was also a correspondent during the Spanish Civil War.

He was also a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. His literacy was great and he was awarded several prizes and awards. He was raised in an activist family which resulted in him being one. His life was full of remarkable steps.

Some of the remarkable facts about Langston Hughes are as follows.

Read more about famous poets here.

1. Hughes was a Reporter

The most remarkable fact was his contribution to the Harlem Renaissance although he was also a reporter by profession.

For 20 years, he worked for the Chicago Defender newspaper, which was the most influential African-American newspaper of that time.

He used his position as a reporter to bring light to controversial issues of the time like injustices in America and abroad.

2. Hughes wrote Poetry until his Death

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A great poet throughout his life until his last days. His last publication was The Panther & the Lash which was about the black power movement. This he did before he died due to prostate cancer surgery complications in 1967.

3. A Newspaper Correspondent during the Spanish Civil War

Hughes worked for the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper in 1937 where he reported on the Spanish Civil War.

His stay in Spain for about five months where he recorded twenty-two articles that covered specific areas of warlike Black Americans volunteering in the Abraham Lincoln and Washington Brigades.

During this period, he composed two poems; Postcard from Spain and Letter from Spain.

4. He was an award-winning writer.

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Hughes’s literacy prowess was great throughout his lifetime which became attractive to many.

This resulted in him gaining multiple rewards which were inclusive of the Intercollegiate Poetry Awards in 1927, the Golden Harmon Awards in 1930.

That notwithstanding, he had other awards like the Rosenwald Fellowship in 1941, the Ainsfeld-Wolfe Award in 1954, and the Spingarn medal in 1960.

Other multiple poetry contest awards and prizes like Opportunity, Amy Spingam Contest, and Witter Bynner Undergraduate Poetry Prize Contests.

5. Hughes studied engineering

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It is believed that Hughes did his engineering studies to please his father. He attended Colombia’s School of Mines, Engineering, and Chemistry where he later dropped after one year after making a decision that engineering was not his path in life.

During his time in this school of engineering, he got involved in the Harlem cultural movement. Later on, he graduated from Lincoln University with a Bachelor of Arts using a Colombia scholarship.

6. Hughes was a leader of the Harlem Renaissance

Langston Hughes brought light to a lot of different issues in America and abroad. However, his work is mostly recalled for bringing light to the Harlem Renaissance movement.

With a single slice of pen and a piece of paper, he composed poems, short stories, and plays that inspired the African American artistic movement’s masses. He did not only celebrate Black lives but also helped to shape racial pride.

This was also done by Martin Luther King Jr.

7. Hughes came from an Activist Family

Hughes came from an impressive lineage of abolitionists and activists. His maternal grandfather, Charles Henry Langston, advocated for equal rights, education, and suffrage in Ohio and Kansas for 30 years.  

Also, his uncle, John Mercer Langston was an abolitionist, an attorney, a diplomat, and a politician. John was among the first Black men to be elected to the United States public offices.

Hughes was raised by his grandmother who was an educator and an abolitionist too, who taught him the need for self-love despite the racism in society.

Read more about famous poets here.

8. Hughes wished to do a movie about being black in America

Together with other talented black creatives, he travelled to the Soviet Union in 1932. This was to take part in a film about black life in the American South called Black and White.

Activist Louise Thomson put the cast together and envisioned the project as being a more honest portrayal of Black hardship than what Hollywood was capable of at the time.

The project fell apart with some of the Black actors claiming that the Soviets axed the film to curry favors with Washington. However, Hughes still blamed the simple creative differences which led to the end of the project.

9. Hughes worked with Dr Carter G. Woodson

When Hughes returned to the United States from one of his tours abroad, he stayed in Washington D.C. where he spent some time working for Carter Woodson who was a historian and well known as the father of Black history.

Hughes helped him to catalogue new and noteworthy experiences and achievements of African Americans.

Woodson inaugurated the celebration of these achievements in the Negro History Week in 1926, between the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglass.

Years later in 1926, the then-president Gerald Ford and the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History (ASALH) expanded the commemoration to the entire month.

10. Hughes was rebellious

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The poem The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain turned out to be a manifesto-like thing for young black American writers and artists. He articulates a kind of racial consciousness and cultural nationalism for the first time.

He is breaking with the establishment asking the young writers and artists to take pride in their blackness and their black heritage and also make that an informing source of their art. 

Hughes was a poet for the people in that his poetry and fiction were and are accessible to just about everybody. He dealt with themes of everyday black American life.

These and many more facts are very remarkable about Langston Hughes the poet. He made several moves and achieved in influencing people to stand tall against racism.

Hughes was also well known for being a tourist, who visited very many countries around the world.

He was a reporter, he wrote poetry until his death, he was an award-winning writer, and he also studied engineering for one year.

Later, he became a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. It is important to note that he came from an activist family, and was also rebellious. However, he had no children and didn’t marry in his entire life.

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11. Hughes was Well Represented in The Media

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His life and accomplishments have been portrayed in numerous film and stage productions since the late 20th century. Film portrayals of Hughes include Gary LeRoi as a teenage Hughes in the film Salvation and Daniel Sunjata as Hughes in Brother to Brother.  

Hughes was featured prominently in a national campaign sponsored by the Center for Inquiry known as African Americans for Humanism. In 2016, Hughes’s poem “I, Too” was printed on a full page of The New York Times.

12. Hughes’ Literary Archived Work

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University has his papers and the Langston Hushes collection which contains letters, personal items, manuscripts, clippings, artworks, and photographs that document his life. 

The Langston Huges Memorial Library of Lincoln University and the James Weldon Johnson Collection at Yale University also have the work of Hughes,

13. Hughes’ Honorable Posthumous 

The Langston Hughes Middle School was created in 1979, in Reston, Virginia. In 2002, the United States Postal Service added the image of Langston to its Black Heritage series of postage stamps.

Hughes was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2012.

14. Langston Hughes Honored by Society

Is the United States-based literary society that is concerned with the work of African American poet Hughes. It was founded after the poet’s death however the society’s official publication is the Langston Hughes Review. Annually, the organization presents the Langston Hughes Award.

15. Hughes Has a Medal Named After Him

The Langston Hughes Festival of the City College of New York has an annual award that is awarded to highly distinguished writers from the African American diaspora for their impressive works of fiction, poetry, drama, and autobiography. 

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16. Hughes was a Secret Chef

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During his early career, he held various kitchen jobs as an assistant cook, busboy, and restaurant laundry. His experience greatly influenced his writing and understanding. Themes of food are prominent in his poems, plays, and stories. Hughes captured the cultural, social, and emotional significance of food within the African American experience. Even though his primary focus was on writing, he was able to earn experience in the kitchen.

17. The Blues Music Greatly Influenced his Poems

The Blues is a genre of music that originated in the Deep South of the United States. When Hughes was younger, he was surrounded by the blues which had a profound impact on his artistic sensibilities. In his poems The Weary Blues and Mother to Son, he captures the raw emotion and rhythmic pulse that is expressed in the blues. He is known for being one of the first African American writers to bring the blues to a wider audience. Through him, there was a bridge between the blues and other literary forms.

However, critics argued that Hughes appropriated the blues for his artistic purposes without acknowledging its roots. His fans on the other hand saw how he understood the art and used it to grow as a writer and artist. His early poems had strong conventions of the blues.

18. Hughes was a Skilled Boxer

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During his youth, he trained and sparred with his friends and other peers. He later pursued boxing and competed in amateur matches. He would train at local gyms which helped him develop agility, footwork, and punching technique. When his writing career took off, Hughes explored themes of boxing, struggle, and overcoming adversity. These can be seen in his poems and stories such as I, Too, Sing America, and Fight. 

19. He dreamt of being a Sailor

Hughes shared that he always felt drawn to the ocean. When he was younger, he encountered the sea through songs and stories. At the age of 17, he took a significant step towards his dream by working as a busboy on a ship that was sailing between New York and Africa. Hughes earned firsthand exposure to the world of sailors, the vastness of the ocean, and the cultural experience of encountering different people. In the poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers he shares his experiences at sea.

20. Langston embraced the Technology for Literature

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He was a pioneer who embraced the new technology for literature. In the 1930s, he wrote and performed his poems for radio broadcasts. Even though he was embracing the latest technologies, he also organized public readings and participated in community events. Hughes even experimented with film by writing scripts and collaborating on projects such as The Emperor Jones and Way Down South. Through his innovative way of reaching audiences, he was able to spark conversations about race, identity, and social justice with people across the nation.

His willingness to embrace new technologies was a deliberate strategy to amplify his voice and connect with diverse audiences. His approach continues to inspire writers and artists today. Hughes demonstrated the power of technology to break down barriers and also promote understanding of cultures.