#LangstonHughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967): Hughes was one of the most famous poets of the #HarlemRenaissance, as well as an innovator in the form of jazz poetry. Born up in Joplin, Missouri, of an extremely complex ancestry, Hughes moved around as a child in the Midwestern United States. After his father abandoned the family and his mother had to travel to find work, Hughes was sent to live with his maternal grandmother in Kansas, where he remained for most of his upbringing. An unhappy child, he found optimism in the world of reading and loved the artful way writers played with language. After his grandmother died, he lived with a variety of relatives until being reunited with his mother in Illinois. Pursuing writing throughout his studies, he found it wouldn’t pay his bills and worked various jobs before working as a crewman for the Navy in the early 1920s, which took him abroad for a few months. He lived in England with the black expatriate community there and then moved back in with his mother in Washington DC in the mid-1920s. A series of odd jobs eventually led him to become enrolled in #LincolnUniversity, where he was a classmate of #ThurgoodMarshall. After graduating with his B.A., he moved to #Harlem, which was his home for the rest of his life. It was during this time that he became most well-known, writing poetry and prose, even creating a magazine #FireDevotedToYoungerNegroArtists. His work has often been hailed for its depiction of working-class struggles of #BlackAmerica, as well as his frustration by #colorism and elitism within the Black community. He embraced #PanAfricanism and throughout his life was a staunch supporter of art, artists, and public speakers who fully extolled pride in being Black. In his poem “My People,” published in 1923, he spoke to this pride:
“The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.
The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.
Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.”
He died in 1967 after surgical complications related to prostate cancer and his ashes are spread under a medallion at the #SchomburgCenterForResearchInBlackCulture in Harlem. #PrideMonth #LGBTQIA #LGBTQIAPride #Pride #LegendsOfPride #YouCannotEraseUs
Legends of Pride 