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128-519: Langston Hughes ' childhood was tumultuous. He mainly grew up with his mother due to his father abandoning them in order to seek fortune in Mexico . Because of the color of her skin, Hughes' mother struggled at getting a well paying job which resulted in the family growing up in poverty . Through his mother's eyes, Hughes learned about the injustices in American society. He was sent to live with his grandmother for

256-479: A WASP category. He was attracted more to the African-American people and neighborhood of Harlem than to his studies, but he continued writing poetry. Harlem was a center of vibrant cultural life. Hughes worked at various odd jobs before serving a brief tenure as a crewman aboard the S.S. Malone in 1923, spending six months traveling to West Africa and Europe. In Europe, Hughes left the S.S. Malone for

384-567: A segregated America. Many of his lesser-known political writings have been collected in two volumes published by the University of Missouri Press and reflect his attraction to Communism. An example is the poem "A New Song". In 1932, Hughes became part of a group of black people who went to the Soviet Union to make a film depicting the plight of African Americans in the United States. Hughes

512-528: A slave trader of Clark County , who Hughes claimed to be Jewish . Hughes's maternal grandmother, Mary Patterson , was of African-American, French, English and Native American descent. One of the first women to attend Oberlin College , she married Lewis Sheridan Leary , also of mixed-race descent, before her studies. In 1859, Lewis Leary joined John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in West Virginia, where he

640-608: A brief farewell message entitled "el gran poeta de raza negra" ("the great poet of the black race"). Hughes was also involved in other Communist-led organizations such as the John Reed Clubs and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights . He was more of a sympathizer than an active participant. He signed a 1938 statement supporting Joseph Stalin 's purges and joined the American Peace Mobilization in 1940 working to keep

768-609: A busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel . Hughes's earlier work had been published in magazines and was about to be collected into his first book of poetry when he encountered poet Vachel Lindsay , with whom he shared some poems. Impressed, Lindsay publicized his discovery of a new black poet. The following year, Hughes enrolled in Lincoln University , a historically black university in Chester County, Pennsylvania . He joined

896-507: A countercultural type of music to fit in with the illicit environment and events going on. Jazz artists were therefore hired to play at speakeasies. Al Capone , the famous organized crime leader, gave jazz musicians previously living in poverty a steady and professional income. Thaddeus Russell, in A Renegade History of the United States , states: "The singer Ethel Waters fondly recalled that Capone treated her 'with respect, applause, deference, and paid in full.'" Also from A Renegade History of

1024-683: A general pessimism about race relations, as well as a sardonic realism. He also became an advisory board member to the (then) newly formed San Francisco Workers' School (later the California Labor School ). In 1935, Hughes received a Guggenheim Fellowship . The same year that Hughes established his theatre troupe in Los Angeles, he realized an ambition related to films by co-writing the screenplay for Way Down South , co-written with Clarence Muse , African-American Hollywood actor and musician. Hughes believed his failure to gain more work in

1152-401: A grey undistinguished tone quality." The following example shows a short excerpt of the straight melody of "Mandy, Make Up Your Mind" by George W. Meyer and Arthur Johnston (top), compared with Armstrong's solo improvisations (below) (recorded 1924). (The example approximates Armstrong's solo, as it does not convey his use of swing.) Armstrong's solos were a significant factor in making jazz

1280-473: A hero and an example to be emulated within their own work. One of these young black writers ( Loften Mitchell ) observed of Hughes: Langston set a tone, a standard of brotherhood and friendship and cooperation, for all of us to follow. You never got from him, 'I am the Negro writer,' but only 'I am a Negro writer.' He never stopped thinking about the rest of us. Hughes was drawn to Communism as an alternative to

1408-406: A lock and open the door. As to where speakeasies obtained alcohol, there were rum runners and bootleggers. Rum running, in this case, was the organized smuggling of liquor by land or sea into the U.S. Decent foreign liquor was high-end alcohol during prohibition, and William McCoy had some of the best of it. Bill McCoy was in the rum-running business, and at certain points of time was ranked among

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1536-771: A mess boy bound for West Africa. From 1922 to 1924 Hughes worked on the S.S. Malone , experiencing many west African countries before returning to the US in 1925 to live with his mother in Washington DC . Gaining experience abroad influenced how Hughes moved through the US as a young adult; however, he did not stay long. Upon his second voyage across the Atlantic he stopped off in France and made his way to Paris with little to nothing in his pockets. He described those early days in Paris as initially exciting but

1664-405: A new style/genre was formed called Marabi . In the 1940s, the genre had taken the country by storm, and by the 1950s, another style of South African jazz was formed called Kwela with an addition of the modern or traditional pennywhistle . South African jazz has created many stars of which some became famous worldwide e.g. Miriam Makeba , Hugh Masekela . During this period, jazz began to get

1792-428: A nightlife for black people who were living in these slums. During this period in the early 20th century, American jazz was introduced on South African radios , and it became the most popular style of music in the urban areas of South Africa. The biggest consumer of jazz music was the newly black urban class in these shebeens based on the slums of South Africa. Therefore, jazz got fused with African Traditional Music and

1920-423: A period of time as his mother could not support him. He drew inspiration from his early life for his writings which led him to excel in school, and later saved his life. When he was 17 years old, Hughes went to his father's estate in Mexico . Hughes was able to eventually enroll in college, but decided to drop out to work for different kinds of shipping vessels that sailed around the world. Like his mother, he faced

2048-498: A platform for rebellion on multiple fronts. In dance halls, jazz clubs, and speakeasies, women found refuge from societal norms that confined them to conventional roles. These spaces offered them more freedom in their speech, attire, and behavior. Reflecting the prevalent Freudian psychology of the 1920s, jazz promoted "childlike" behavior, with frequenters known as Flappers often called "Jazz Babies." The uninhibited and spontaneous nature of jazz encouraged primal and sensual expression. As

2176-422: A poem titled Roar, China! which called for China's resistance to the full-scale invasion which Japan had launched less than two months earlier. Hughes used China as a metonym for the "global colour line." According to academic Gao Yunxiang, Hughes's poem was integral to the global circulation of Roar, China! as an artistic theme. In November 1937, Hughes departed Spain for which El Mono Azul published

2304-516: A racial chauvinist. He found some new writers, among them James Baldwin , lacking in such pride, over-intellectual in their work, and occasionally vulgar. Hughes wanted young black writers to be objective about their race, but not to scorn it or flee it. He understood the main points of the Black Power movement of the 1960s, but believed that some of the younger black writers who supported it were too angry in their work. Hughes's work Panther and

2432-492: A reputation as being immoral, and many members of the older generations saw it as threatening the old cultural values and promoting the new decadent values of the Roaring Twenties . Professor Henry van Dyke of Princeton University wrote: "[I]t is not music at all. It's merely an irritation of the nerves of hearing, a sensual teasing of the strings of physical passion." The media also spoke ill of it. The New York Times in

2560-472: A sequence about Hughes in the radio series Destination Freedom . In 1943, Hughes began publishing stories about a character he called Jesse B. Semple, often referred to and spelled "Simple", the everyday black man in Harlem who offered musings on topical issues of the day. Although Hughes seldom responded to requests to teach at colleges, in 1947 he taught at Atlanta University . In 1949, he spent three months at

2688-464: A series of Midwestern small towns. His father left the family soon after the boy was born and later divorced Carrie. The senior Hughes traveled to Cuba and then Mexico, seeking to escape the enduring racism in the United States . After the separation, Hughes's mother traveled, seeking employment. Langston was raised mainly in Lawrence, Kansas , by his maternal grandmother, Mary Patterson Langston. Through

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2816-480: A successful rate. Hughes obtained a scholarship to study at Lincoln University , when he returned home to the United States . He was also able to establish a network of close friends. Hughes pointed out the irony of Lincoln having an all white faculty despite it being a black university , and advocated for employment of black faculty. In his senior year, he wrote his first book, Not Without Laughter (1930). He

2944-511: A temporary stay in Paris. There he met and had a romance with Anne Marie Coussey, a British-educated African from a well-to-do Gold Coast family; they subsequently corresponded, but she eventually married Hugh Wooding , a promising Trinidadian lawyer. Wooding later served as chancellor of the University of the West Indies . During his time in England in the early 1920s, Hughes became part of

3072-592: A toning down of Soviet propaganda on racial segregation in America. Hughes and his fellow Blacks were not informed of the reasons for the cancellation, but he and Koestler worked it out for themselves. Hughes also managed to travel to China, Japan, and Korea before returning to the States. Hughes's poetry was frequently published in the CPUSA newspaper and he was involved in initiatives supported by Communist organizations, such as

3200-458: A total of nine breweries. Finally, some racketeers stole industrial grain alcohol and redistilled it to sell in speakeasies. From 1919, Kid Ory 's Original Creole Jazz Band of musicians from New Orleans played in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where in 1922 they became the first black jazz band of New Orleans origin to make recordings. The year also saw the first recording by Bessie Smith ,

3328-493: A true 20th-century language. After leaving Henderson's group, Armstrong formed his virtuosic Hot Five band, which included instrumentalist's Kid Ory (trombone), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Johnny St. Cyr (banjo), and wife Lil on piano, where he popularized scat singing . Jelly Roll Morton recorded with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in an early mixed-race collaboration, then in 1926 formed his Red Hot Peppers . There

3456-514: A vehicle for the popularization of jazz music in America. Although jazz was taken over by the white middle-class population, it facilitated the mesh of African American traditions and ideals with white middle-class society. By the 1920s jazz had spread around the world. According to The New York Times in 1922: Jazz latitude is marked as indelibly on the globe as the heavy line of the equator. It runs from Broadway along Main Street to San Francisco: to

3584-412: A way to make his own money. He started out as an English tutor and became very popular. Soon he had enough money to move back to the US to stay with his mother and other family members. He also started college but he quickly decided it wasn't for him. Needing and wanting to make money he turned to odd jobs, eventually landing himself at a shipyard. At the age of 21, Hughes boarded the ship S.S. Malone as

3712-464: A willingness to talk about sex freely, and radio concerts. Dances like the Charleston , developed by African Americans, suddenly became popular among the youth. Traditionalists were aghast at what they considered the breakdown of morality. Some urban middle-class African Americans perceived jazz as "devil's music", and believed the improvised rhythms and sounds were promoting promiscuity. Jazz served as

3840-551: A year. While at Columbia in 1921, Hughes managed to maintain a B+ grade average. He published poetry in the Columbia Daily Spectator under a pen name. He left in 1922 because of racial prejudice among students and teachers. He was denied a room on campus because he was black. Eventually he settled in Hartley Hall , but he still suffered from racism among his classmates, who seemed hostile to anyone who did not fit into

3968-421: Is easy to see the inspiration taken from Paul Whiteman since his style was also a fusion of the two. Belgian guitarist Django Reinhardt popularized gypsy jazz , a mix of 1930s American swing, French dance hall " musette ", and Eastern European folk with a languid, seductive feel; the main instruments were steel-stringed guitar, violin, and double bass. Solos pass from one player to another as guitar and bass form

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4096-449: Is pride in the African-American identity and its diverse culture. "My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind", Hughes is quoted as saying. He confronted racial stereotypes, protested social conditions, and expanded African America's image of itself; a "people's poet" who sought to reeducate both audience and artist by lifting

4224-495: Is taken from his poem " The Negro Speaks of Rivers ". Within the center of the cosmogram is the line: "My soul has grown deep like the rivers". Jazz Age The Jazz Age was a period in the 1920s and 1930s in which jazz music and dance styles gained worldwide popularity. The Jazz Age's cultural repercussions were primarily felt in the United States, the birthplace of jazz. Originating in New Orleans as mainly sourced from

4352-520: The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, alongside those of his contemporaries: Zora Neale Hurston , Wallace Thurman , Claude McKay , Countee Cullen , Richard Bruce Nugent , and Aaron Douglas . Except for McKay, they worked together also to create the short-lived magazine Fire!! Devoted to Younger Negro Artists . Hughes and his contemporaries had different goals and aspirations than the black middle class . Hughes and his fellows tried to depict

4480-550: The Hot Seven . It was not until the 1930s and 1940s that many women jazz singers, such as Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, were recognized as successful artists in the music world. Another famous female vocalist who attained stardom at the tail-end of the Jazz Age was Ella Fitzgerald, one of the more popular female jazz singers in the United States for more than half a century and later dubbed "The First Lady of Song". She worked with all

4608-576: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" became Hughes's signature poem and was collected in his first book of poetry, The Weary Blues (1926). Hughes's first and last published poems appeared in The Crisis ; more of his poems were published in The Crisis than in any other journal. Hughes's life and work were enormously influential during

4736-559: The Omega Psi Phi fraternity. After Hughes earned a B.A. degree from Lincoln University in 1929, he returned to New York. Except for travels to the Soviet Union and parts of the Caribbean , he lived in Harlem as his primary home for the remainder of his life. During the 1930s, he became a resident of Westfield, New Jersey for a time, sponsored by his patron Charlotte Osgood Mason . Some academics and biographers believe that Hughes

4864-642: The Stuyvesant Polyclinic in New York City at the age of 66 from complications after abdominal surgery related to prostate cancer . His ashes are interred beneath a floor medallion in the middle of the foyer in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. It is the entrance to an auditorium named for him. The design on the floor is an African cosmogram entitled Rivers . The title

4992-459: The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools as a visiting lecturer. Between 1942 and 1949, Hughes was a frequent writer and served on the editorial board of Common Ground , a literary magazine focused on cultural pluralism in the United States published by the Common Council for American Unity (CCAU). He wrote novels, short stories, plays, poetry, operas, essays, and works for children. With

5120-659: The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (1959), and Shep Fields 's Rippling Rhythm Orchestra at Chicago's landmark Palmer House Hotel (1936), New York City's "Star-light Roof" in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (1937), and the Copacabana nightclub. Young people in the 1920s used the influence of jazz to rebel against the traditional culture of previous generations. This youth rebellion of the 1920s included such things as flapper fashions, women who smoked cigarettes in public,

5248-483: The "New York Suitcase Theater" with playwright Paul Peters, artist Jacob Burck , and writer (soon-to-be underground spy) Whittaker Chambers , an acquaintance from Columbia. In 1932, he was part of a board to produce a Soviet film on "Negro Life" with Malcolm Cowley , Floyd Dell , and Chambers. In 1931, Prentiss Taylor and Langston Hughes created the Golden Stair Press , issuing broadsides and books featuring

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5376-702: The "low-life" in their art, that is, the real lives of blacks in the lower social-economic strata. They criticized the divisions and prejudices within the black community based on skin color . Hughes wrote what would be considered their manifesto, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain", published in The Nation in 1926: The younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly, too. The tom-tom cries, and

5504-548: The 1920s and early 1930s from the US across the Atlantic. Documenting what life was like for Hughes moving all over the eastern and central US as well as living in Mexico with his father, Hughes chronicled the drama and the violence that he experienced and saw as a young black man in anti-black countries. Over a few year span he decided he needed to move back to the US which created conflict with his father. Back and forth conflicts over financial assistance led Langston Hughes to search for

5632-400: The 1920s, the laws were widely disregarded, and tax revenues were lost. Well-organized criminal gangs took control of the beer and liquor supply for many cities, unleashing a crime wave that shocked the U.S. This prohibition was taken advantage of by gangsters such as Al Capone , and approximately $ 60 million (equivalent to $ 1,271,666,667 in 2023) in illegal alcohol was smuggled across

5760-641: The 1920s. Hughes did whatever he could to become a writer. He also became a major voice in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance . Hughes remembered this was one of the first moments he felt united with Black voices. The Big Sea closed on the moment when Hughes won the Hammond Award in 1931. Hughes described how the Hammond Award elevated his career as a writer, and how he hoped to inspire future Black writers. The Big Sea chronicles Hughes' late teens to twenties in

5888-436: The 1930s, Kansas City Jazz as exemplified by tenor saxophonist Lester Young marked the transition from big bands to the bebop influence of the 1940s. An early 1940s style known as "jumping the blues" or jump blues used small combos, uptempo music and blues chord progressions, drawing on boogie-woogie from the 1930s. The introduction of large-scale radio broadcasts enabled the rapid national spread of jazz in 1932. The radio

6016-506: The BBC. Thereafter jazz became an important element in many leading dance orchestras, and jazz instrumentalists became numerous. Very soon, the resulting music craze in the United Kingdom led to a moral panic in which the threat of jazz to society was exemplified by Scottish artist John Bulloch Souter 's controversial 1926 painting The Breakdown . The painting has been described as embodying

6144-567: The Caribbean, such as René Maran from Martinique and Léon Damas from French Guiana in South America, the works of Hughes helped to inspire the Négritude movement in France. A radical black self-examination was emphasized in the face of European colonialism . In addition to his example in social attitudes, Hughes had an important technical influence by his emphasis on folk and jazz rhythms as

6272-576: The Hawaiian Islands, which it has lyricized to fame; to Japan, where it is hurriedly adopted as some new Western culture; to the Philippines, where it is royally welcomed back as its own; to China where the mandarins and even the coolies look upon it as a helpful sign that the Occident at last knows what is music; to Siam, where the barbaric tunes strike a kindred note and come home to roost; to India, where

6400-715: The Hungarian author Arthur Koestler , then a Communist who was given permission to travel there. As later noted in Koestler's autobiography, Hughes, together with some forty other Black Americans, had originally been invited to the Soviet Union to produce a Soviet film on "Negro Life", but the Soviets dropped the film idea because of their 1933 success in getting the US to recognize the Soviet Union and establish an embassy in Moscow. This entailed

6528-516: The Jazz Age was intertwined with the developing youth culture . The movement would also help in introducing jazz culture to Europe. The term jazz age was in popular usage prior to 1920. In 1922, American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald further popularized the term with the publication of his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age . Jazz is a music genre that originated in the Black-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana , in

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6656-568: The Lash , posthumously published in 1967, was intended to show solidarity with these writers, but with more skill and devoid of the most virulent anger and racial chauvinism some showed toward whites. Hughes continued to have admirers among the larger younger generation of black writers. He often helped writers by offering advice and introducing them to other influential persons in the literature and publishing communities. This latter group, including Alice Walker , whom Hughes discovered, looked upon Hughes as

6784-668: The U.S. His success was based on a "rhetoric of domestication" according to which he had elevated and rendered valuable a previously inchoate kind of music. Other influential large ensembles included Fletcher Henderson's band, Duke Ellington's band (which opened an influential residency at the Cotton Club in 1927) in New York, and Earl Hines ' Band in Chicago (who opened in The Grand Terrace Cafe there in 1928). All significantly influenced

6912-612: The U.S. from participating in World War II . Hughes initially did not favor black American involvement in the war because of the persistence of discriminatory U.S. Jim Crow laws and racial segregation and disfranchisement throughout the South. He came to support the war effort and black American participation after deciding that war service would aid their struggle for civil rights at home. The scholar Anthony Pinn has noted that Hughes, together with Lorraine Hansberry and Richard Wright ,

7040-493: The United States, "The pianist Earl Hines remembered that 'Scarface [Al Capone] got along well with musicians. He liked to come into a club with his henchmen and have the band play his requests. He was very free with $ 100 tips." The illegal culture of speakeasies led to what was known as "black and tan" clubs which had multiracial crowds. There were many speakeasies, especially in Chicago and New York City . New York City had, at

7168-676: The artwork of Prentiss Taylor and the texts of Langston Hughes. In 1932 they issued The Scottsboro Limited based on the trial of the Scottsboro Boys . In 1932, Hughes and Ellen Winter wrote a pageant to Caroline Decker in an attempt to celebrate her work with the striking coal miners of the Harlan County War , but it was never performed. It was judged to be a "long, artificial propaganda vehicle too complicated and too cumbersome to be performed." Maxim Lieber became his literary agent, 1933–1945 and 1949–1950. (Chambers and Lieber worked in

7296-553: The basis of his poetry of racial pride. In 1930, his first novel, Not Without Laughter , won the Harmon Gold Medal for literature. At a time before widespread arts grants, Hughes gained the support of private patrons and he was supported for two years prior to publishing this novel. The protagonist of the story is a boy named Sandy, whose family must deal with a variety of struggles due to their race and class, in addition to relating to one another. In 1931, Hughes helped form

7424-416: The best. To avoid being caught, he sold liquor just outside the territorial waters of the United States. Buyers would come to him to pick up his booze as a precaution for McCoy. McCoy's liquor specialty was selling high-quality whiskey without diluting the alcohol. Bootlegging was making and or smuggling alcohol around the U.S. As selling the alcohol could make plenty of money, there are several major ways this

7552-485: The black American oral tradition and drawing from the activist experiences of her generation, Mary Langston instilled in her grandson a lasting sense of racial pride. Imbued by his grandmother with a duty to help his race, Hughes identified with neglected and downtrodden black people all his life, and glorified them in his work. He lived most of his childhood in Lawrence. In his 1940 autobiography The Big Sea , he wrote: "I

7680-560: The black expatriate community . In November 1924, he returned to the U.S. to live with his mother in Washington, D.C. After assorted odd jobs, he gained white-collar employment in 1925 as a personal assistant to historian Carter G. Woodson at the Association for the Study of African American Life and History . As the work demands limited his time for writing, Hughes quit the position to work as

7808-606: The book, Madrid 37 , signed in pencil and annotated as II [Roman numeral two] has appeared on the rare book market. In Chicago, Hughes founded The Skyloft Players in 1941, which sought to nurture black playwrights and offer theatre "from the black perspective." Soon thereafter, he was hired to write a column for the Chicago Defender , in which he presented some of his "most powerful and relevant work", giving voice to black people. The column ran for twenty years. Hughes also mentored writer Richard Durham who would later produce

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7936-482: The borders of Canada and the United States. The resulting illicit speakeasies that grew from this era became lively venues of the "Jazz Age", hosting popular music that included current dance songs, novelty songs and show tunes. By the late 1920s, a new opposition mobilized across the U.S. Anti-prohibitionists, or "wets", attacked prohibition as causing crime, lowering local revenues, and imposing rural Protestant religious values on urban America. Prohibition ended with

8064-464: The city . In New Orleans, the development of jazz was influenced by Creole music , ragtime , and blues . Jazz is seen by many as "America's classical music". The earliest Jazz styles, which emerged in New Orleans, Chicago, and New York in the early 1920s, are sometimes referred to as " dixieland jazz." In the 1920s, jazz became recognized as a major form of musical expression. It then emerged in

8192-431: The city/town in order to earn an income. Due to discriminative laws that forbade black people from living in the suburbs and owning property, most of them ended up living in slums which became townships. In these slums, shebeens were opened by black women with the purpose of selling home-made, Traditional African beer (locally known as ' Umqombothi ') in order to earn an income. Eventually, these shebeens would provide

8320-599: The conclusion of World War I, the onset of women's suffrage, and Prohibition, and ultimately crumbled with the Great Crash of 1929. The 1930s belonged to popular swing big bands, in which some virtuoso soloists became as famous as the band leaders. Key figures in developing the "big" jazz band included bandleaders and arrangers Count Basie , Cab Calloway , Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey , Duke Ellington , Benny Goodman , Fletcher Henderson , Earl Hines , Harry James , Jimmie Lunceford , Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw . Although it

8448-489: The creative community in Harlem. His first poetry collection, The Weary Blues , was published in 1926. Hughes eventually graduated from Lincoln University . In addition to poetry, Hughes wrote plays and published short story collections, novels, and several nonfiction works. From 1942 to 1962, as the civil rights movement gained traction, Hughes wrote an in-depth weekly opinion column in a leading black newspaper, The Chicago Defender . Like many African-Americans, Hughes

8576-486: The culture of African Americans , jazz played a significant part in wider cultural changes in this period, and its influence on popular culture continued long afterwards. The Jazz Age is often referred to in conjunction with the Roaring Twenties , and overlapped in significant cross-cultural ways with the Prohibition Era . The movement was largely affected by the introduction of radios nationwide. During this time,

8704-588: The development of big band-style swing jazz. By 1930, the New Orleans-style ensemble was a relic, and jazz belonged to the world. Several musicians grew up in musical families, where a family member would often teach how to read and play music. Included in this group was the bandleader Guy Lombardo , who collaborated with his brothers Carmen and Lebert in Canada to form the Royal Canadians Orchestra in

8832-801: The drive to free the Scottsboro Boys . Partly as a show of support for the Republican faction during the Spanish Civil War , in 1937 Hughes traveled to Spain as a correspondent for the Baltimore Afro-American and other various African-American newspapers. In August 1937, he broadcast live from Madrid alongside Harry Haywood and Walter Benjamin Garland . When Hughes was in Spain a Spanish Republican cultural magazine, El Mono Azul , featured Spanish translations of his poems. On 29 August 1937, Hughes wrote

8960-693: The earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry , Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance . He famously wrote about the period that "the Negro was in vogue", which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue." Growing up in a series of Midwestern towns, Hughes became a prolific writer at an early age. He moved to New York City as a young man, where he made his career. He graduated from high school in Cleveland , Ohio, and soon began studies at Columbia University in New York City. Although he dropped out, he gained notice from New York publishers, first in The Crisis magazine and then from book publishers, and became known in

9088-504: The early 1920s. By 1929 their "sweet" big band appeared regularly at the landmark Roosevelt Hotel in New York City and later in 1959 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel , where they entertained audiences nationwide for decades with a velvety-smooth interpretation of the "sweetest music this side of heaven". Despite Benny Goodman 's claim that "sweet" music was a "weak sister" as compared to the "real music" of America, Lombardo's band enjoyed widespread popularity which crossed racial divides and

9216-403: The encouragement of his best friend and writer, Arna Bontemps , and patron and friend, Carl Van Vechten , he wrote two volumes of autobiography, The Big Sea and I Wonder as I Wander , as well as translating several works of literature into English. With Bontemps, Hughes co-edited the 1949 anthology The Poetry of the Negro , described by The New York Times as "a stimulating cross-section of

9344-491: The fears of Western civilization towards jazz music, and the painting was later destroyed by its author to placate critics who insisted the work should be burned. The European style of jazz entered full swing in France with the Quintette du Hot Club de France , which began in 1934. Much of this French jazz was a combination of African-American jazz and the symphonic styles in which French musicians were well-trained; in this, it

9472-410: The form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of Black-American and European-American musical parentage with a performance orientation. From African traditions, jazz derived its rhythm, "blues", and traditions of playing or singing in one's own expressive way. From European traditions, jazz derived its harmony and instruments. Louis Armstrong brought

9600-744: The germ; to Monte Carlo and the Riviera, where the jazz idea has been adopted as its own enfant-chéri; to Paris, which has its special versions of jazz; to London, which long has sworn to shake off the fever, but still is jazzing; and back again to Tinpan Alley, where each day, nay, each hour, adds some new inspiration that will slowly but surely meander along jazz latitude. As only a limited number of American jazz records were released in Europe, European jazz traces many of its roots to American artists such as James Reese Europe, Paul Whiteman, Mike Danzi and Lonnie Johnson , who visited Europe during and after World War I. It

9728-403: The height of Prohibition, 32,000 speakeasies. At speakeasies, both payoffs and mechanisms for hiding alcohol were used. Charlie Burns, in recalling his ownership of several speakeasies employed these strategies as a way to preserve his and Jack Kriendler's illegal clubs. This includes forming relationships with local police. Mechanisms that a trusted engineer created include one that when a button

9856-534: The imaginative writing of the Negro" that demonstrates "talent to the point where one questions the necessity (other than for its social evidence) of the specialization of 'Negro' in the title". From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, Hughes's popularity among the younger generation of black writers varied even as his reputation increased worldwide. With the gradual advance toward racial integration , many black writers considered his writings of black pride and its corresponding subject matter out of date. They considered him

9984-458: The immense cultural shift the popularity of jazz music generated. Jazz aimed to cultivate empathy by initially challenging established norms and those who adhered to them, before captivating them with its ethereal and enchanting allure. It sought to blur the societal divides of race, class, and political allegiance, as illustrated in James Baldwin's renowned short story, "Sonny's Blues," where

10112-424: The improvisational solo to the forefront of a piece, replacing the original polyphonic ensemble style of New Orleans jazz. Jazz is generally characterized by swing and blue notes , call and response vocals , polyrhythms and improvisation . Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933. In

10240-495: The jazz greats of the era, including Chick Webb , Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Benny Goodman. These women were persistent in striving to make their names known in the music industry and to lead the way for many more women artists to come. The birth of jazz is credited to African Americans. But it was modified to become socially acceptable to middle-class white Americans. Those critical of jazz saw it as music from people with no training or skill. White performers were used as

10368-424: The late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in blues and ragtime . New Orleans provided a cultural humus in which jazz could germinate because it was a port city with many cultures and beliefs intertwined. In New Orleans, people of different cultures and races often lived close together which allowed for cultural interaction which facilitated the development of the active musical environment of

10496-544: The local Frenchmen. It is in his descriptions of the people he met abroad that gave his audience some of the most rich personalities in Montmartre and Paris. He chronicled his travels around Europe in search of employment and travel opportunities as well as opportunities to publish his poetry. He made multiple trips back and forth across the Atlantic, meeting many important figures in the Harlem Renaissance as well as some of

10624-542: The lucrative movie trade was due to racial discrimination within the industry. In 1937 Hughes wrote the long poem, Madrid , his reaction to an assignment to write about black Americans volunteering in the Spanish Civil War . His poem, accompanied by 9 etchings evoking the pathos of the Spanish Civil War by Canadian artist Dalla Husband , was published in 1939 as a hardcover book Madrid 1937 , printed by Gonzalo Moré, Paris, intended to be an edition of 50. One example of

10752-416: The most celebrated stars of Paris. Katherine Wood, a writer for The New York Times , talked about her experience reading The Big Sea . She mentioned how Langston Hughes's autobiography "is the product and portrait of a very unusual spirit, in its narrative of crowded happenings and contrasts and the envisioning of a strange and significant time." Wood emphasized the idea of how the social circumstances of

10880-510: The most famous of the 1920s blues singers. Chicago, meanwhile, was the main center developing the new " Hot Jazz ", where King Oliver joined Bill Johnson . Bix Beiderbecke formed The Wolverines in 1924. The same year, Louis Armstrong joined the Fletcher Henderson dance band as featured soloist, leaving in 1925. The original New Orleans style was polyphonic, with theme variation and simultaneous collective improvisation. Armstrong

11008-558: The music of white American jazz singers. Other jazz vocalists include Bessie Smith and Florence Mills . In urban areas, such as Chicago and New York, African-American jazz was played on the radio more often than in the suburbs. Big-band jazz, like that of James Reese Europe and Fletcher Henderson in New York, attracted large radio audiences. Several "sweet jazz" dance orchestras also achieved national recognition in big band remote broadcasts including: Guy Lombardo 's Royal Canadian Orchestra, at New York City's Roosevelt Hotel (1929) and at

11136-525: The natives receive it dubiously, while the colonists seize upon it avidly; to the East Indies, where it holds sway in its elementary form — ragtime; to Egypt, where it sounds so curiously familiar and where it has set Cairo dance mad; to Palestine, where it is looked upon as an inevitable and necessary evil along with liberation; across the Mediterranean, where all ships and all shores have been inoculated with

11264-480: The older generation dismissed jazz, it became a vehicle for young women (and men) to challenge the values of their parents and grandparents. With women's suffrage —the right for women to vote—at its peak with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 18, 1920, and the entrance of the free-spirited flapper, women began to take on a larger role in society and culture. With women now taking part in

11392-445: The outside world and the spaces Hughes moved in as well as the people he found himself around, but he left much to be desired as to his internal states. His emotions were obscured behind the worlds he described and the people who filled it. Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri . One of

11520-446: The radical left who had previously supported him. He moved away from overtly political poems and towards more lyric subjects. When selecting his poetry for his Selected Poems (1959) he excluded all his radical socialist verse from the 1930s. These critics on the Left were unaware of the secret interrogation that took place days before the televised hearing. On May 22, 1967, Hughes died in

11648-612: The ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment , which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933. Some states continued statewide prohibition, marking one of the latter stages of the Progressive Era . Formed as a result of the eighteenth amendment , speakeasies were places (often owned by organized criminals) where customers could drink alcohol and relax or speakeasy. Jazz was played in these speakeasies as

11776-469: The reality of having no money quickly weighed on him and he was forced to find cramped accommodations, sharing a room. Luckily his roommate was a kind and gentle dancer and she eagerly looked for employment as did Langston. His descriptions of the difficulties finding employment as a Black American who was not a singer, musician or dancer at the height of the Jazz Age in Paris showed the anti-foreign sentiment of

11904-538: The respect and support of black churches and organizations and avoid exacerbating his precarious financial situation, Hughes remained closeted . However, Arnold Rampersad , Hughes' primary biographer, concludes that the author was probably asexual and passive in his sexual relationships rather than homosexual, despite noting that he exhibited a preference for African-American men in his work and life, finding them "sexually fascinating". from "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (1920)  ... My soul has grown deep like

12032-514: The rhythm section. Some researchers believe Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti pioneered the guitar-violin partnership characteristic of the genre which was brought to France after they had been heard live or on Okeh Records in the late 1920s. After the discovery of natural resources which boosted the country's economy during the late 19th century and early 20th century, South Africa became urbanised rapidly after its formation in 1910 with Black people leaving their native rural villages to go and work in

12160-661: The rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln — went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy — bosom turn all golden in the sunset. ... First published in 1921 in The Crisis , the official magazine of

12288-457: The same difficulties finding a job that provided a stable income due to racism. Hughes later moved to Paris and found low income housing. There, he met many musicians from various music backgrounds. Paris at the time was going through a musical revolution with Jazz and Blues , and from that, Hughes gained interest in those genres and drew inspiration to his now well known poetic style. He ended up publishing two poetic books, but neither sold at

12416-467: The theoretical books of socialism or communism or the Democratic or Republican parties for that matter, and so my interest in whatever may be considered political has been non-theoretical, non-sectarian, and largely emotional and born out of my own need to find some way of thinking about this whole problem of myself." Following his testimony, Hughes distanced himself from Communism. He was rebuked by some on

12544-488: The theory of the black aesthetic into reality. 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. Hughes stressed a racial consciousness and cultural nationalism devoid of self-hate. His thought united people of African descent and Africa across the globe to encourage pride in their diverse black folk culture and black aesthetic . Hughes

12672-402: The time period and Hughes's situation really shaped his writing. Those characteristics were what really brought out the quality of the book in her opinion. The article was written on August 25, 1940. An analysis of the book called it "one of the most insightful studies of the Harlem Renaissance ever written by one who had actually lived during that time," providing incredibly detailed accounts of

12800-408: The tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain free within ourselves. His poetry and fiction portrayed the lives of the working-class blacks in America, lives he portrayed as full of struggle, joy, laughter, and music. Permeating his work

12928-420: The transformative power of jazz unites two estranged brothers through the deeply emotive melodies played by Sonny. In Fitzgerald's works and beyond, jazz acted as a leveling influence, fostering a degree of equality within both literature and society. In 1925, The Great Gatsby epitomized this phase of Fitzgerald's career, capturing the romanticism and superficial charm of the "Jazz Age." This era started with

13056-432: The underground together around 1934–1935.) Hughes's first collection of short stories was published in 1934 with The Ways of White Folks . He finished the book at "Ennesfree" a Carmel-by-the-Sea, California , cottage provided for a year by Noel Sullivan, another patron since 1933. These stories are a series of vignettes revealing the humorous and tragic interactions between whites and blacks. Overall, they are marked by

13184-469: The work force after the end of the First World War there were now many more possibilities for women in terms of social life and entertainment. Ideas such as equality and open sexuality were very popular during the time and women seemed to capitalize on these ideas during this period. The 1920s saw the emergence of many famous women musicians, including Bessie Smith. Bessie Smith gained attention because she

13312-533: Was a Chicago-based bandleader, session musician (piano), composer, singer, and arranger during the 1920s classic blues era. She and Lil Hardin Armstrong often are ranked as two of the best female jazz blues piano players of the period. Piano player Lil Hardin Armstrong was originally a member of King Oliver's band with Louis, and went on to play piano in her husband's band the Hot Five and then his next group called

13440-467: Was a Negro, and I liked Negroes very much." His father had hoped Hughes would choose to study at a university abroad and train for a career in engineering. He was willing to provide financial assistance to his son on these grounds, but did not support his desire to be a writer. Eventually, Hughes and his father came to a compromise: Hughes would study engineering, so long as he could attend Columbia. His tuition provided, Hughes left his father after more than

13568-552: Was a collective sound, swing also offered individual musicians a chance to "solo" and improvise melodic, thematic solos which could at times be complex "important" music. Over time, social strictures regarding racial segregation began to relax in America: white bandleaders began to recruit black musicians and black bandleaders recruit white ones. In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman hired pianist Teddy Wilson , vibraphonist Lionel Hampton and guitarist Charlie Christian to join small groups. In

13696-577: Was a humanist "critical of belief in God. They provided a foundation for nontheistic participation in social struggle." Pinn has found that such writers are sometimes ignored in the narrative of American history that chiefly credits the civil rights movement to the work of affiliated Christian people. During World War II, Hughes became a proponent of the Double V campaign ; the double Vs referred to victory over Hitler abroad and victory over Jim Crow domestically. Hughes

13824-460: Was a larger market for jazzy dance music played by white orchestras, such as Jean Goldkette 's orchestra and Paul Whiteman 's orchestra. In 1924, Whiteman commissioned Gershwin 's Rhapsody in Blue , premiered by Whiteman's Orchestra. Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald opined that Rhapsody in Blue idealized the youthful zeitgeist of the Jazz Age. By the mid-1920s, Whiteman was the most popular bandleader in

13952-459: Was a master of his hometown style, but by the time he joined Henderson's band, he was already a trailblazer in a new phase of jazz, with its emphasis on arrangements and soloists. Armstrong's solos went well beyond the theme-improvisation concept, and extemporized on chords, rather than melodies. According to Schuller, by comparison, the solos by Armstrong's bandmates (including a young Coleman Hawkins ), sounded "stiff, stodgy," with "jerky rhythms and

14080-537: Was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry. Well, everyone knows, except us, that all Negroes have rhythm, so they elected me as class poet. During high school in Cleveland, Hughes wrote for the school newspaper, edited the yearbook, and began to write his first short stories, poetry, and dramatic plays. His first piece of jazz poetry, "When Sue Wears Red",

14208-410: Was able to garner financial support by an elderly white lady who advocated for black perspectives in literature. However, eventually Hughes learned that this lady was driven by prejudice and wanted to promote her own perspectives on black ideas. Ultimately, Hughes challenged her, which resulted in him getting cut off financially. Hughes settled in Harlem at the time the financial boom was winding down in

14336-537: Was accused of being a Communist by many on the political right, but he always denied it. When asked why he never joined the Communist Party, he wrote, "it was based on strict discipline and the acceptance of directives that I, as a writer, did not wish to accept." In 1953, he was called before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations led by Senator Joseph McCarthy . He stated, "I never read

14464-473: Was active as an educator and activist for voting and rights for African Americans. His and Mary's daughter Caroline (known as Carrie) became a schoolteacher and married James Nathaniel Hughes (1871–1934). They had two children; the second was Langston Hughes, by most sources born in 1901 in Joplin, Missouri (though Hughes himself claims in his autobiography to have been born in 1902). Langston Hughes grew up in

14592-534: Was an adolescent. The family moved to the Fairfax neighborhood of Cleveland , Ohio , where he attended Central High School and was taught by Helen Maria Chesnutt , whom he found inspiring. His writing experiments began when he was young. While in grammar school in Lincoln, Hughes was elected class poet. He stated that in retrospect he thought it was because of the stereotype about African Americans having rhythm. I

14720-484: Was concert music by amateurs, usually volunteers. Big band dance music is played by professionals and was featured in remote broadcasts from nightclubs, dance halls, and ballrooms. Musicologist Charles Hamm described three types of jazz music at the time: black music for black audiences, black music for white audiences, and white music for white audiences. Jazz artists like Louis Armstrong originally received very little airtime because most stations preferred to play

14848-429: Was described as the "sound factory." Radio made it possible for millions to hear music for free — especially people who never attended expensive, distant big city clubs. These broadcasts originated from clubs in leading centers such as New York, Chicago, Kansas City, and Los Angeles. There were two categories of live music on the radio: concert music and big band dance music. The concert music was known as "potter palm" and

14976-570: Was done. One strategy used by Frankie Yale and the Genna brothers gang (both involved in organized crime) was to give poor Italian Americans alcohol stills to make alcohol for them at $ 15 per day's work. Another strategy was to buy liquor from rumrunners. Racketeers would also buy closed breweries and distilleries and hire former employees to make alcohol. Another person famous for organized crime named Johnny Torrio partnered with two other mobsters and legitimate brewer Joseph Stenson to make illegal beer in

15104-469: Was even praised by Louis Armstrong as one of his favorites. Some musicians, like Pops Foster , learned on homemade instruments. Urban radio stations played African-American jazz more frequently than suburban stations, due to the concentration of African Americans in urban areas such as New York and Chicago. Younger demographics popularized the black-originated dances such as the Charleston as part of

15232-559: Was fatally wounded. Ten years later, in 1869, the widow Mary Patterson Leary married again, into the elite, politically active Langston family. Her second husband was Charles Henry Langston , of African-American, Euro-American and Native American ancestry. He and his younger brother, John Mercer Langston , worked for the abolitionist cause and helped lead the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society in 1858. After their marriage, Charles Langston moved with his family to Kansas, where he

15360-620: Was hired to write the English dialogue for the film. The film was never made, but Hughes was given the opportunity to travel extensively through the Soviet Union and to the Soviet-controlled regions in Central Asia, the latter parts usually closed to Westerners. While there, he met Robert Robinson , an African American living in Moscow and unable to leave. In Turkmenistan , Hughes met and befriended

15488-573: Was homosexual and included homosexual codes in many of his poems, as did Walt Whitman , who, Hughes said, influenced his poetry. Hughes's story "Blessed Assurance" deals with a father's anger over his son's effeminacy and "queerness". Additionally, Sandra L. West, author of the Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance , contends that his homosexual love of black men is evidenced in a number of reported unpublished poems to an alleged black male lover. The biographer Aldrich argues that, in order to retain

15616-609: Was not only a great singer but also an African-American woman as well as an icon in the LGBTQ+ community. Throughout her musical career she was unapologetically herself, expressing the struggles of the Black working class, addressing issues such as poverty, racism, and sexism alongside themes of love and female sexuality in her lyrics. She has grown through the ages to be one of the most well respected singers of all time and inspired later performers such as Billie Holiday . Lovie Austin (1887–1972)

15744-459: Was of mixed ancestry. Both of Hughes's paternal great-grandmothers were enslaved Africans, and both of his paternal great-grandfathers were white slave owners in Kentucky. According to Hughes, one of these men was Sam Clay, a Scottish-American whiskey distiller of Henry County , said to be a relative of statesman Henry Clay . The other putative paternal ancestor whom Hughes named was Silas Cushenberry,

15872-440: Was one of the few prominent black writers to champion racial consciousness as a source of inspiration for black artists. His African-American race consciousness and cultural nationalism would influence many foreign black writers, including Jacques Roumain , Nicolás Guillén , Léopold Sédar Senghor , and Aimé Césaire . Along with the works of Senghor, Césaire, and other French-speaking writers of Africa and of African descent from

16000-427: Was pushed, tongue blocks under shelves of liquor would drop, making the shelves drop back and liquor bottles fall down a chute, break, and drain the alcohol through rocks and sand. An alarm also went off if the button was pushed to alert customers of a raid. Another mechanism used by Burns was a wine cellar with a thick door flush with the wall. It had a small, almost unnoticeable hole for a rod to be pushed in to activate

16128-554: Was their live performances which inspired European audiences' interest in jazz, as well as the interest in all things American (and therefore exotic) which accompanied the economic and political woes of Europe during this time. The beginnings of a distinct European style of jazz began to emerge in this interwar period. British jazz began with a tour by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1919 . In 1926, Fred Elizalde and His Cambridge Undergraduates began broadcasting on

16256-625: Was unhappy for a long time, and very lonesome, living with my grandmother. Then it was that books began to happen to me, and I began to believe in nothing but books and the wonderful world in books—where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas." After the death of his grandmother, Hughes went to live with family friends, James and Auntie Mary Reed, for two years. Later, Hughes lived again with his mother Carrie in Lincoln, Illinois . She had remarried when he

16384-569: Was written while he was in high school. Hughes had a very poor relationship with his father, whom he seldom saw when a child. He lived briefly with his father in Mexico in 1919. Upon graduating from high school in June 1920, Hughes returned to Mexico to live with his father, hoping to convince him to support his plan to attend Columbia University . Hughes later said that, prior to arriving in Mexico, "I had been thinking about my father and his strange dislike of his own people. I didn't understand it, because I

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