"I dream of a world where...love will bless the earth and peace will adorn its paths." -- Langston Hughes An artist in the true sense of the word, Langston Hughes was 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 spokesman for the simple man, a man who had no wealth or power but still had solidity of heart and abundant virtue. He was an early innovator of the then new art form known as Jazz Poetry along with ee cummings, TS Eliot and Ezra Pound. Hughes is also known as a leader 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 son of teacher Carrie (Caroline) Mercer Langston and James Nathaniel Hughes. He grew up in a series of small Midwestern towns in Missouri. Hughes' father left the family and later divorced Carrie, going to Cuba and then Mexico, seeking to escape the ongoing racism in the United States ("Langston Hughes Biography"). His grandmother raised him until the age of thirteen (as his father had left him and his mother at a young age) when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois to live with his mother and husband. They later settled in Cleveland, Ohio. Hughes began writing poetry when he was in Lincoln ("Langston Hughes"). After graduating from high school, Hughes spent a year in Mexico followed by a year at Columbia University in New York City. During this period, he acquired menial jobs but, when he moved to Washington D.C. in November 1924, Alfred A. Knopf, published his first b...... half of the paper ......tion to Langston Hughes." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 4 December 2013. "Biography of Langston Hughes." Poetry Criticism. Ed. V. Young, Robyn: Gale Research Company, 1991. Vol. 1. 246-247 , Ted . www.wikipedia.org Web. 4 December 2013. "Langston Hughes Academy of American Poets, 3 December 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: Centennial Celebration of the Poet of Black America, Ebony magazine, April 2002.