The Hard Knock Life for Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes is often considered a voice of the African-American people and a prime example of the Harlem Renaissance. His writing does symbolize these titles, but the concept of Langston Hughes that portrays a black man's rise to poetic greatness from the depths of poverty and repression are largely exaggerated. America frequently confuses the ideas of segregation, suppression, and struggle associated with African-American history and imposes these ideas onto the stories of many black historical figures and artists. While many of them have struggled with these confines set upon them by American society, Langston Hughes did not fulfill this historical stereotype due to his personal wealth, education, and recognized success.

James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri on February 1, 1902. His father, James Nathaniel Hughes was a lawyer and businessman and his mother, Carrie Mercer Hughes was a schoolteacher. The dual income from his parents appropriated him with funds that he used for his education and to begin his poetry career. This was an advantage unknown to many black Americans at this time. Hughes spoke of the poverty of the black people and struggles that many went through in their lives just to make enough money for their families to survive. Langston Hughes never encountered this first-hand. In "Let America Be America Again", he states "I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart". He was never as poor as he spoke of and was never "fooled and pushed apart". He also was privileged enough to obtain a sponsor, which still to this day is considered a rare blessing to aspiring writers.

In 1929, he met Charlotte van der Veer Quick Mason, a wealthy widow and for the next four years, he was financially supported by this woman. Again in "Let America Be America Again", Hughes says "I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years." In comparison to the many African-Americans at the time who were, indeed, struggling with financial burdens, Langston Hughes knew nothing of this uncertainty he spoke of due to his sponser. The images of poverty that Hughes evokes through his poetry, contribute to the American notion of impoverished black Americans since the days of slavery, however, Hughes' life was very different from the notion he described.

At this time in history, many Americans were illiterate, especially minorities. Langston Hughes was fortunate to be able to read, and blessed with his talent to write. Due to financial stability, Hughes was able to attend Columbia University and Lincoln University. This level of study was seldom attained by African-Americans. Even though Langston Hughes was highly educated for an African-American of the time, he still used "black slang" and southern dialects in many of his poems. In "Po' Boy Blues", he not only relays the thoughts of black oppression through the factual words of the poem, but through the dialect used. "Weary, weary, Weary early in de morn. Weary, weary, Early, early in de morn. I's so weary I wish I'd never been born." Reading this brings images of slavery and the meager existence of poor blacks of the South, but Hughes was not one of these. His own poetry tells the story of the repressed black Americans, yet this also furthers the preconceived images in the readers mind that the writer is, himself, a part of this life style, which he is not.

Many are born with the talent to write, but few obtain