“It would seem to me then only fitting and proper—if art is to be an…” — Langston Hughes

“It would seem to me then only fitting and proper—if art is to be an intensification or enlargement of life, or to give adequate comment on what living is like in the poet's own time—that Negro art be largely protest art.”

Defining art as an intensified response to the realities of its own age · Essay, 200 Years of Afro-American Poetry

Langston Hughes

About Langston Hughes

1 February 1902–22 May 1967

In the smoky jazz clubs of 1920s Harlem, where the saxophone's wail mingled with the clatter of typewriter keys, James Mercer Langston Hughes emerged as one of America's most vital poetic voices. Born on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri, and passing away on May 22, 1967, in New York City, Hughes spent his…

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