Happy Birthday, Langston Hughes!

Today is the birthday of Langston Hughes, who was born this day in 1902 and died in 1967. I can't help but think that the anniversary of Hughes' birth is a powerful way to start Black History Month: a gay poet, novelist and playwright who was a major part of the Harlem Renaissance.

Hughes was a major proponent of Black pride, advocating that black people should focus less on assimilating themselves into a culture of "people whose shoes were always shined, who had been to Harvard, or who had heard Bach" and instead learn to appreciate themselves and their culture. In 1926, Hughes wrote in The Nation magazine the following about his fellow African-American artists of his generation:

"(we) now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly, too. The tom-tom cries, and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain free within ourselves."

That's a thought I think most underrepresented groups can empathize with, including gays.

Hughes' writing often dealt with race and class. His first novel, Not Without Laughter, was a semi-autobiographical story that followed a young boy facing the challenges imposed on him by society due to his race and class. His 1934 collection of short stories, The Ways of White Folks, examined black/white relations.

While his poetry frequently included hints at gay themes like Walt Whitman, early accounts of Hughes' life and accomplishments overlooked that Hughes was gay. However, Hughes has been reclaimed as a black gay icon in the past couple decades, including a portrayal in Brother to Brother, which focused on the life of another influential gay writer of the Harlem Renaissance, Richard Bruce Nugnet. Archival footage of Hughes was used in the groundbreaking 1988 short film Looking for Langston, an experimental meditation on the poet's sexuality.

You can sample some of Hughes' poetry, courtesy of the University of Illinois.