James Mercer Langston Hughes, was an American poet and social activist, born and raised in Joplin, Mississippi. Langston Hughes was a prominent leader in the Harlem Renaissance, an artistic movement in the 1920s that consisted of new African-American cultural expressions. The Harlem Renaissance is compared the European Renaissance, and is described as the "rebirth" of African-American arts. Centered in Harlem, a neighborhood near Manhattan in New York City, the Harlem Renaissance inspired black writers throughout America and African and Caribbean colonies.
Hughes used his nonfiction, poems, and plays to show racial tensions and the life of African-Americans during the 1920s. One of Hughes' most famous piece of work, The Ways of White Folks brought to attention to race relations and the treatment of African-Americans, as well as the developing culture as a result of the Harlem Renaissance.
The Ways of White Folks is Langston Hughes's first collection of short stories published in 1934. Hughes wrote the collection, which is an example of a short story cycle, while he lived in Carmel, California. The collection includes 14 short stories:
- "Cora Unashamed"
- "Slave on the Block"
- "Home"
- "Passing"
- "A Good Job Gone"
- "Rejuvenation Through Joy"
- "The Blues I'm Playing"
- "Red-Headed Baby"
- "Poor Little Black Fellow"
- "Little Dog"
- "Berry"
- "Mother and Child"
- "One Christmas Eve"
- "Father and Son"
In 1926, Langston Hughes won the Witter Bynner Undergraduate Poetry Prize, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1935.He also earned a fellowship from the Rosenwald Fund in 1941, and was awarded the Springarn Medical for distinguished achievements by an African American from the NAACP in 1960. In 2002, Langston Hughes was listed on scholar Molefi Kete Asante's list of 100 Greatest African Americans.
