James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. 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, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, eventually settling in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Lincoln, Illinois, that Hughes began writing poetry. Hughes began writing in high school, and even at this early age was developing the voice that made him famous. After graduating from high school, Hughes planned to return to Mexico to visit with his father

the 1940s, first for the “Chicago Defender” and later for the “New York Post,” Hughes wrote a newspaper column in the voice of the character Simple, also called Jesse B. Semple, who expressed the thoughts of young black Americans. Simple’s plain speech, humor, and use of dialect belied his wisdom and common sense. The character became famous and later figured in many of Hughes’s short stories. This fictional everyman, while humorous, also allowed Hughes to discuss some very serious racial issues. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.

Hughes did not confine himself to revealing just the cadences of black music to his readers. He actually wanted his audience to taste the whole of the African American experience. In an essay published in the “Nation” in 1926 Hughes writes:" We younger Negro artists now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they aren’t, it doesn't matter." In 1953 he suffered a public humiliation at the hands of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who forced him to appear in Washington, D.C., and testify officially about his politics. Hughes denied that he had ever been a party member but conceded that some of his radical verse had been ill-advised. In 1953 he suffered a public humiliation at the hands of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who forced him to appear in Washington, D.C., and testify officially about his politics. Hughes denied that

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