A Look Back: Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance

Updated: Dec 3, 2023

James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet and writer. He was born in the early part of the 20th Century and lived to see the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

While Hughes was not originally from New York City, he moved here to attend Columbia University in the early 1920s. He enjoyed exploring the city and fell in love with Harlem which he called "the great dark city.* Hughes dropped out of Columbia after two semesters and would complete his studies at Lincoln University near Philadelphia along with fellow student and future Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall.

In due course, Hughes returned to Harlem and made it his home. On the horizon was the Harlem Renaissance and Hughes would be a central force in this movement.

The Harlem Renaissance was considered a Golden Age in African-American culture, manifesting in literature, music, stage performance, and art.** It also redefined how African Americans were viewed by America and helped in creating a greater social consciousness. During this time, jazz music continued its metamorphosis and became very popular to a diversified audience. As its popularity soared, the Jazz Age was born!

One of America's renowned jazz clubs, The Cotton Club, arose from this neighborhood. Musicians Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Bessie Walker, et al. performed here. The Cotton Club attracted crowds from all walks of life including movie stars such as Judy Garland and the mayor of New York City, Jimmy Walker.

New York Public Library Digital Collection

The Harlem Renaissance's influence on Langston Hughes and his influence on his fellow artists from that time cannot be overstated. His poetry was deeply affected by jazz and incorporated the syncopated rhythms and repetitive phrases of blues and jazz music. Hughes' poem "The Weary Blues" is probably his best-known poem recognized for its similarity to a jazz song with the mixing of emotions and imagery. Below is an example that illustrates the poem's song-like quality.

From The Weary Blues

He played a few chords then he sang some more— "I got the Weary Blues And I can't be satisfied. Got the Weary Blues And can't be satisfied— I ain't happy no mo' And I wish that I had died." And far into the night he crooned that tune. The stars went out and so did the moon. The singer stopped playing and went to bed While the Weary Blues echoed through his head. He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.

Although Hughes was known for his poetry, he was also a proficient writer. Hughes composed eleven plays, wrote short stories, edited anthologies, authored an acclaimed autobiography, and co-wrote a play with Zora Neale Hurston (also a fellow contributor to the Harlem Renaissance).

Langston Hughes died in 1967 at the age of 65 from complications that resulted from surgery. His home, where he lived the last 20 years of his life, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on October 29, 1982. This honor was to acknowledge his deep and enduring relationship with Harlem which was so integral to his work. One last thought, unlike some more militant writers in the mid-20th Century, Hughes never lost his conviction that “most people are generally good, in every race and in every country where I have been.”***