Langston Hughes Timeline

First published in 1921 in The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers' became Hughes's signature poem and was later collected in his first book of poetry, The Weary Blues.

Image source: The Negro Speaks of Rivers

The first time Hughes mentioned the Southern U.S. in one of his poems was in June 1922, when he published a poem called 'The South' in an issue of The Crisis.

In 1926, Hughes published his first poetry collection, The Weary Blues, which included his signature poem 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers.' That same year, he won the Witter Bynner Undergraduate Poetry Prize, and his article 'The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain' appeared in The Nation on June 23, 1926.

In the spring of 1927, Hughes was asked to perform his poems at Fisk University, a historically black university in Nashville, and at a Young Women's Christian Association convention in Texas.

During his travels with Hurston, Hughes met important figures including relatives of Jean Toomer in Georgia and visited the plantation that inspired Cane (1923). His requested work was only published in 1928 under the name 'Alabama Earth.' Notes gathered during encounters with local folklore informants helped him create the novel Not Without Laughter (1930) and the play Mule Bone, written alongside Hurston.

Image source: Mule Bone

In 1930, Hughes's first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon Gold Medal for literature, cementing his reputation as a major American writer.

Image source: Not Without Laughter

In 1931, Hughes helped form the 'New York Suitcase Theater' with playwright Paul Peters, artist Jacob Burck, and writer Whittaker Chambers, an acquaintance from Columbia.

In 1931, artist Prentiss Taylor and Langston Hughes created the Golden Stair Press, issuing broadsides and books featuring Taylor's artwork and Hughes's texts.

In 1932, the Golden Stair Press issued The Scottsboro Limited, based on the trial of the Scottsboro Boys, combining Hughes's poetry with Prentiss Taylor's artwork.

Image source: Scottsboro Boys

In 1932, Hughes and Ellen Winter wrote a pageant for Caroline Decker celebrating her work with striking coal miners in the Harlan County War, but it was never performed.

Image source: Harlan County War

Maxim Lieber became Hughes's literary agent from 1933 to 1945, and again from 1949 to 1950, helping manage his growing body of work. Also since 1933, patron Noel Sullivan provided Hughes with the 'Ennesfree' cottage in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, where he finished The Ways of White Folks.

Hughes's first collection of short stories, The Ways of White Folkss, was published in 1934, offering biting satirical portrayals of race relations in America.

Image source: The Ways of White Folks

On August 29, 1937, Hughes wrote the poem 'Roar, China!', calling for China's resistance to the full-scale invasion Japan had launched less than two months earlier.

In 1937, Hughes wrote the long poem Madrid, his reaction to an assignment about black Americans volunteering in the Spanish Civil War. In November 1937, he departed Spain, with El Mono Azul publishing a farewell message calling him 'el gran poeta de raza negra'. The poem, accompanied by etchings by Dalla Husband, was published in 1939 as the hardcover book Madrid 1937, printed by Gonzalo Moré in Paris in an edition of 50.

In 1940, Hughes published his autobiography The Big Sea, in which he reflected on his lonely childhood living with his grandmother and his early years as a writer.

Image source: The Big Sea

In Chicago, Hughes founded The Skyloft Players in 1941, nurturing black playwrights and offering theatre 'from the black perspective.' From 1942 to 1962, as the civil rights movement gained traction, he wrote an in-depth weekly opinion column for the Chicago Defender, presenting some of his most powerful and relevant work.

Between 1942 and 1949, Hughes was a frequent writer and served on the editorial board of Common Ground, a literary magazine focused on cultural pluralism in the United States published by the Common Council for American Unity.

In 1943, Hughes began publishing stories about a character he called Jesse B. Semple, known as Simple, whose humorous and incisive commentary on race and life in Harlem became one of his most beloved creations.

Although Hughes seldom responded to requests to teach at colleges, in 1947 he taught at Atlanta University.

Image source: Clark Atlanta University

In 1949, Hughes spent three months at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools as a visiting lecturer.

Image source: University of Chicago Laboratory Schools

With Arna Bontemps, Hughes co-edited the 1949 anthology The Poetry of the Negro, described by The New York Times as 'a stimulating cross-section of the imaginative writing of the Negro' and hailed as the most comprehensive and valuable collection of its kind.

Image source: Langston Hughes

In 1958, The Langston Hughes Reader was published by George Braziller in New York, collecting the breadth of Hughes's poetry, prose, and drama.

When selecting his poetry for his Selected Poems (1959), Hughes excluded all his radical socialist verse from the 1930s, distancing his public legacy from his earlier militant politics.

Image source: Ted Hughes

In 1959, Hughes was featured reciting his poetry on the album Weary Blues (MGM), with music by Charles Mingus and Leonard Feather, blending jazz and spoken word.

Image source: Weary Blues (album)

In 1960, Hughes contributed lyrics to Randy Weston's album Uhuru Afrika (Roulette), a landmark jazz recording celebrating African independence.

Image source: Uhuru Afrika

In 1932, Hughes traveled to the Soviet Union as part of a group of African Americans invited to participate in a proposed Soviet film depicting the conditions of Black life in the United States. He served on a board to produce the film with Malcolm Cowley, Floyd Dell, and Chambers.

Partly as a show of support for the Republican faction during the Spanish Civil War, in 1937 Hughes traveled to Spain as a correspondent for the Baltimore Afro-American and other African-American newspapers.

Image source: Spanish Civil War

In August 1937, Hughes broadcast live from Madrid alongside Harry Haywood and Walter Benjamin Garland, reporting on the Spanish Civil War.

Image source: Siege of Madrid

In 1938, Hughes signed a statement supporting Joseph Stalin's purges, reflecting his leftist sympathies of the era, though he later distanced himself from such positions.

Image source: Great Purge

In 1940, Hughes joined the American Peace Mobilization, working to keep the U.S. out of World War II. Though sympathetic to leftist causes, when asked why he never joined the Communist Party he wrote it was based on 'strict discipline and the acceptance of directives that I, as a writer, did not wish to accept.'

Image source: American Peace Mobilization

In 1935, Hughes received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed him to travel to Spain and Russia, expanding his international perspective as a writer.

In 1943, Lincoln University awarded Hughes an honorary Doctor of Letters degree in recognition of his literary achievements.

In 1960, the NAACP awarded Hughes the Spingarn Medal for distinguished achievements by an African American.

Image source: Spingarn Medal

In 1961, Hughes was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, one of the highest honors for American artists and writers.

Image source: American Academy of Arts and Letters

In 1963, Howard University awarded Hughes an honorary doctorate in recognition of his contributions to American literature.

Image source: Howard University

In 1964, Western Reserve University awarded Hughes an honorary Doctor of Letters degree.

Image source: Case Western Reserve University

In 1978, the first Langston Hughes Medal was awarded by the City College of New York, honoring distinguished writers in the tradition of Hughes's literary legacy.

Image source: Langston Hughes Medal

In 1979, Langston Hughes Middle School was created in Reston, Virginia, commemorating the poet's enduring influence on American education and culture.

In 1981, New York City Landmark status was given to Hughes's Harlem home at 20 East 127th Street by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and 127th Street was renamed 'Langston Hughes Place.' The Langston Hughes House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

In 2002, the United States Postal Service added Hughes's image to its Black Heritage series of postage stamps, and scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed him among the 100 Greatest African Americans.

In South Fulton (Fairburn), Georgia, the Langston Hughes High School was completed in 2009 and opened its doors in August 2009. Earlier that decade, Langston Hughes Elementary opened in Lawrence, Kansas in 2000.

In 2012, Hughes was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, recognizing his lasting impact on literature connected to the city.

Image source: Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame

In 2015, Google commemorated what would have been Hughes's 113th birthday with a Google Doodle celebrating his poetry and legacy.

Image source: Google Doodle

On May 22, 1967, at the age of 66, Hughes died at the Stuyvesant Polyclinic in New York City from complications following abdominal surgery related to prostate cancer. His work Panther and the Lash was posthumously published in 1967, intended to show solidarity with Black Power-era writers while remaining free of virulent anger and racial chauvinism.

Following Hughes's death, Margaret Danner published the audio recording of 'Poets of Revolution' in 1970, preserving Hughes's voice for future generations.

In 1973, Good Morning Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings by Langston Hughes was published by Lawrence Hill, gathering his previously uncollected political writings.

In his film Looking for Langston (1989), British filmmaker Isaac Julien claimed Hughes as a black gay icon, exploring the notion that Hughes was homosexual—his sexuality having historically been ignored or downplayed.

Image source: Looking for Langston

Paper Armor (1999) by Eisa Davis and Hannibal of the Alps (2005) by Michael Dinwiddie are plays by African-American playwrights that address Hughes's sexuality.

In 2001, The Collected Works of Langston Hughes was published by the University of Missouri Press, assembling the complete body of Hughes's writings. Yale's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library also holds the Langston Hughes papers (1862–1980) and collection (1924–1969).

In March 2009, Hughes's Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz, written in 1960, was performed for the first time with specially composed music by Laura Karpman at Carnegie Hall, at the Honor festival curated by Jessye Norman celebrating African-American cultural legacy.

On November 21, 2015, the European premiere of The Langston Hughes Project, featuring Ice-T and McCurdy, took place at the Barbican Centre in London as part of the London Jazz Festival mounted by music producers Serious.

Image source: Barbican Centre