Langston Hughes 1902-1967

Can’t celebrate Black History Month without giving big-ups to Langston Hughes, who’s birthday would have been February 1st.

In case you didn’t know, Mr. Hughes was a famous writer and a major player during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920’s and 30’s.

He helped nurture Black art and sociology during this time along with the likes of Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Aaron Douglas.

Their social work also spilled over to help establish Negritude in France during the 1930’s.

Mr. Hughes wrote many famous poems and short stories during his life and many look at this early prose as one of his signature works:

I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

To top it off, I went to kindergarten at a school that carries his namesake right off of like 105th and Wentworth.

Now, that’s hood.