James Mercer Langston Hughes better known as Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was born February 1, 1902 Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes had a very poor relationship with his father. His parents divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen. After the death of his grandmother, he went to live with family friends, James and Mary Reed, for two years. Because of the unstable early life, his childhood was not an entirely happy one, but it strongly influenced the poet he would become. Later, Hughes lived again with his mother Carrie in Lincoln, Illinois. Upon graduating from high school in June 1920, Hughes returned to Mexico to live with his father, hoping to convince him to support Langston's plan to attend Columbia University. While at Columbia in 1921, Hughes managed to maintain a B+ grade average. He left in 1922 because of racial prejudice, and his interests revolved more around the neighborhood of Harlem than his studies, though he continued writing poetry. Hughes became part of the black expatriate community. In November 1924, Hughes returned to the U. S. to live with his mother in Washington, D.C. Hughes enrolled in Lincoln University, a historically black university in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He joined the Omega Psi Phi fraternity. Thurgood Marshall, who later became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was an alumnus and classmate of Langston Hughes during his undergraduate studies at Lincoln University. On May 22, 1967, Hughes died from complications after abdominal surgery, related to prostate cancer, at the age of 65.
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