During this time Hughes also established several theater groups in such cities as Los Angeles and Chicago. In 1935 he also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which he used to help begin to write scripts for movies and plays. However, his dreams to create black films were stifled by the rampant racism of Hollywood. (Hughes, 1993; 122).
Shortly before his death, Hughes was awarded the Spingham Medal for distinguished achievements by an African-American from the NAACP. In 1961 he was inducted into the National Institute of Arts and Letters and, in 1971, the City College of New York awarded the first Langston Hughes Medal. (Hutson, 96).
One of Hughes most recognized poems is the work entitled Montage of a Dream Deferred, which was published in 1951. It goes:
"What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
or fester like a sore
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
or crust and sugar over Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load.
or does it explode?
This poem is powerful because it summarizes the African-American experience during the lifetime of Langston Hughes. It puts forth the question of what happens to the iconic American Dream when society refuses to let it become a reality for African-Americans? Essentially Hughes says that it either rots away or it eventually...
(Hughes, 1994; 48).
Studying Langston Hughes shows the role that strong and widely recognized African-American leaders played in the Civil Rights movement. Such leaders as Langston Hughes, who was pre-Martin Luther King Jr., laid the ground work for the 1960s movement. Without individuals like Langston Hughes, the civil rights movement could not have occurred as in order for a movement to start within a democracy, it must start not with the government, but with the people.
Works Cited
Bernard, Emily. Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten. New York: Knopf, 2001.
Hughes, Langston. The Big Sea: An Autobiography. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993.
Hughes, Langston. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. New York: Knopf, 1994.
Hutson, Jean Blawckwell and Nelson, Jill. "Remembering Langston." Essence Magazine. February 1992; p. 96.
Joyce, Joyce a. Hughes and Twentieth-Century Genderracial Issues. New York: Oxford University Press USA, 2004.
Ostrom, Hans. Langston Hughes: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1993.
Ostrom, Hans. A Langston Hughes Encyclopedia. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002.
Rampersad, Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes (Volumes I & II). New York: Oxford University Press USA,…
