Hughes’s poems, short plays, essays and short stories appeared in the NAACP publication Crisis Magazine and in Opportunity Magazine. They have also appeared in other publications. He experimented with virtually every form of literature that there is. Langston wrote 16 books of poems, two novels, 3 collections of short stories, 4 volumes of “editorial” and “documentary” fiction, 20 plays, children’s poetry, musicals and operas, 3 autobiographies, a dozen radio and television scripts and dozens of magazine articles. His poems have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Russian, Yiddish and Czech. John Alden Carpenter, William Grant Still and others have set many of them to music.

In 1969, the Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center opened. It was the first public institution named after the Poet Laureate and it houses the largest circulating Black Heritage reading collection in New York City.

After Columbia University, Hughes decided to see the world and find something that made him happy and that he enjoyed. He spent one year in Mexico and held odd jobs as an assistant cook, launderer, a busboy, and traveled to Africa and Europe as a seaman. In 1923, he traveled on a freighter to the Senegal, Nigeria, the Cameroons, Belgium, Congo, Angola, and Guinea in Africa. He later went to Italy and France as well as Russia and Spain. He eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. Later in November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. and began writing poetry. He soon started sitting in clubs as a pastime so that he could listen to blues, jazz, and write poetry. Through these experiences a new rhythm emerged in his writing. A

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