INFLUENCES ON WRITING

Langston Hughes

Race

Gender

In many of his works Hughes uses discrimination and racism to get his point across. In "Let America Be America Again" Hughes uses a contrasting type of style and tone to show his hopes for America verses the realities of the discrimination and racism towards others and how challenging it is for him and the African Americans. Hughes was regarded as the voice for male African Americans in poetry.

Hughes' poem, "Note on Commerical Theatre", is about writing, art, jazz, and theatre scenes in African American culture and how it was a controversy for their race. In the poem, Hughes describes how the whites tried to combine, or infuse, their own culture into the African American culture. Hughes was a huge supporter of making African American art and culture its own identity. So, during this poem, it is describing how the blacks' culture is being absorbed, or taken by the whites'.

Class

Education

Langston was born in Joplin Missouri. While he was a child his parents divorced. As a young man he had odd jobs such as assistant cook, laundry boy, and bus boy.

Hughes graduated high school, he spent a year in Mexico and a year at Columbia university in New York. He then finished his education in Pennsylvania at Lincoln university.