To the disappointment of his father, Langston abandoned his studies and became much more involved with entertaining things like jazz and blues that were near Harlem. Bored of life at the time, he became a steward on a freighter bond to West Africa to travel. He later went to Paris and Italy. When he returned to the United States he did servant work and wrote poems, later earning him a scholarship to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. .
"According to an anecdote, Hughes was discovered by the poet Vachel Lindsay in Washington. Lindsay was dining at the Wardman Park Hotel, where Hughes worked as a busboy, and dropped his poems under Lindsay's dinner plate. Lindsay included several of them in his poetry reading. It prompted interviews of the busboy."(Langston Hughes) .
After quitting his job he moved to New York and got his bachelor's degree in 1929. His first published poem was thought to be his most famous, " The Negro Speaks a River". His later poems, short plays, essays and short stories were shown to the public through the NAACP publication Crisis Magazine and the Opportunity Magazine. Hughes was one of the first black .
authors, who could support himself by his writing. His poems often spoke of African American experiences, roots, and meaningful images that would capture the reader and teach them of that life. His first novel, Not Without Laughter, was written in financially support by a wealthy white woman. He continued to publish poem after poem, short play after short play, essays and short stories that became continuously well known and many famous. He was one of the most famous and well known black writers to come out of Harlem, and his voice was so strong and loud that his poems traveled across the country and he became the extremely talented, well known writer/poet that we know today. On May 22, of 1967, James Langston Hughes died in his beloved town of Harlem. I believe he wanted his life to end in such a place, where his gained all his popularity, and found himself.
