“I dream of a world where… love will bless the earth and peace will adorn its paths.” -- Langston HughesAn artist in the truest sense of the word, Langston Hughes was quite simply a literary genius. Born February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was a spokesperson for the simple man, a man who had neither wealth nor power, but who nevertheless had a healthy heart and abundant virtues. He was an early innovator of the new art form known as jazz poetry, alongside EE Cummings, TS Eliot and Ezra Pound. Hughes is also known as one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance (Francis). Both of Hughes' paternal great-grandmothers were African American, and both of his paternal great-grandfathers were white slave owners from Kentucky. Langston Hughes was the second child of schoolteacher Carrie (Caroline) Mercer Langston and James Nathaniel Hughes. He grew up in a series of small towns in Midwestern Missouri. Hughes' father left his family and later divorced Carrie to travel to Cuba and then Mexico, seeking to escape persistent racism in the United States ("Biography of Langston Hughes"). His grandmother raised him until he was thirteen (as his father had left him and his mother at a young age) when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois to live with her mother and her husband. They then settled in Cleveland, Ohio. Hughes began writing poetry while he was at Lincoln ("Langston Hughes"). After graduating from high school, Hughes spent a year in Mexico, followed by a year at Columbia University in New York. During this time he acquired menial jobs but, when he moved to Washington, D.C. in November 1924, Alfred A. Knopf published his first b...... middle of paper ......tion at Langston Hughes. Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, nd Web. December 4, 2013. “Langston Hughes Biography.” » Poemhunter Inc., nd Web. December 4, 2013. Davis, Arthur P. “Hughes.” Poetry review. Ed. V. Young, Robyn New York: Gale Research Company, 1991. Vol. 246-247. Francis, Ted. . www.wikipedia.org. Web. December 4, 2013. “Langston Hughes. » Academy of American Poets, December 3, 2013. Patterson, Lindsay. America?" NY Times. The New York Times Company, January 29, 1969. Web. December 4, 2013. Rampersad, Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. 418. Print. Whitaker, Charles. Langston Hughes: celebration of the 100th birthday of the poet of black America, Ebony magazine, April 2002.