Langston Hughes

(LoC) Poet and writer Langston Hughes, famous for his elucidations of black American life in his poems, stories, autobiographies, and histories, was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902.
Hughes's parents separated shortly after he was born, and he spent much of his childhood in the company of his grandmother in Lawrence, Kansas. She filled his imagination with stories, such as the tale of her first husband Sheridan Leary, a freedman who went to Harper's Ferry in 1859 to fight alongside abolitionist John Brown. Continued

Image by Carl Van Vechten