Langston Hughes

This passage is about the famous writer, Langston Hughes.

Lexile Level: 560L

Categories: People & Places Classics & Literature Art & Music

Langston Hughes was an African-American writer. He was born in 1902. His parents divorced when he was young. Hughes grew up in Kansas. He lived there with his grandmother. At thirteen, he moved back to Illinois to live with his mother. He finished high school and then began to write poems. After doing some traveling, Hughes moved to Washington, D.C. in 1924. He worked as a busboy in a hotel. One day he showed some of his poems to a famous man. The man liked the poems. Hughes became well-known. Hughes wrote about ordinary African Americans and their daily lives. His poems talked about their trials, their humor, and their love of music and words. Hughes played a big part in the Harlem Renaissance. This was the artistic movement in the 1920s that honored African-American life. Besides poetry, Hughes also wrote essays, plays, novels, and children's books. He died in 1967, but his writing lives on.