Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes was the beating heart of the Harlem Renaissance. Poet, novelist, playwright, and columnist, he wove the rhythms of jazz and blues into verse that celebrated ordinary Black lives. Books like The Weary Blues and I Wonder as I Wander gave American literature a new vernacular music, and his weekly Simple columns brought Black Chicago speech and humor to a national newspaper audience for over two decades.

“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”