INTRODUCTION TO LANGSTON HUGHES
This worksheet will introduce you to the life and time of Langston Hughes. Log on to the Alabama Virtual Library; click on Middle School; click on African-American History and Culture. Choose Biographies. When the page opens, click on the “H” in the alphabet at the top of the page. Find the listing for Hughes. As you read the whole passage, find the answers and fill in the blanks. You will exchange papers to check your answers as I review them with you.
1. Langston Hughes is also known as _____________________________________________.
2. Hughes attended an integrated school while living with his ____________________________.
3. Hughes was a man who loved all _______________________ and knew how to make them laugh, cry and think.
4. Hughes was born February ______________ in ________________________, Missouri.
5. Charles Harold Langston was ___________________________ first black congressman.
6. Hughes' father moved to __________________________ where he became a successful cattle rancher.
7. Hughes attended Central High School, where he was an honor roll student and participated in sports and student politics. He also discovered the poetry of _______________________________________. Hughes wanted to write poetry as _______________________________ did so he could reach ordinary black people who may never in their lives have read poetry.
8. Hughes' poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" was written on the back of ________________________________ when he was making a return trip to Mexico to visit his father.
9. Hughes' father wanted him to study ____________________________________ ,but Langston insisted he wanted to study ________________________________________ at Columbia University in New York City.
10. Hughes got a job as __________________________________________ on a freighter and traveled to the west coast of Africa. This trip inspired him to write the poem "American Heartbreak.”
11. While working as a doorman and a bouncer at a nightclub, Hughes was introduced to ___________________.
12. Hughes returned to Harlem, the predominantly back section of New York City's Manhattan. Harlem was experiencing an explosion in the arts that came to be called the _________________________________________.
13. "Renaissance" means a ____________________. It was the birth of the African-American culture where racism made the development of such a community impossible in the South. As thousands of blacks migrated north during and after World War I looking for new opportunities, Harlem attracted gifted black writers, artists, and musicians.
14. Hughes’ relationship with women did not last long, and he would never ____________________________.
15. Langston's sense of ___________________ helped him hold off despair and bitterness when the promise of the Harlem Renaissance gave way to reinforced prejudice and fewer economic opportunities for black Americans in the 1930s and 1940. He managed to find ironic humor even in segregation itself.
16. Langston Hughes never forgot who he was. He saw beyond the injustices that had been visited upon black people to the human condition that we all share. It was this that made him laugh and cry, not just for black people, but also for all ________________________________________.