August Wilson

The well known poet Langston Hughes was an inspiring character during the Harlem Renaissance to provide a push for the black communities to fight for the rights they deserved. Hughes wrote his poetry to deliver important messages and provide support to the movements. When he was at a young age a teacher introduced him to poets Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman, and they inspired him to start his own. Being a “darker brother,” as he called blacks, he experienced and wanted his rights, and that inspired him. Although literary critics felt that Langston Hughes portrayed an unattractive view of black life, the poems demonstrate reality. Hughes used the Blues and Jazz to add effect to his work as well as his extravagant word use and literary

August Wilson’s 1996 address entitled “The Ground on Which I Stand”, sparked a vigorous debate in the world of theater over the idea of “colorblind casting” and he presented the need for a Black Theatre. Mr. Wilson was outraged by the fact that of the 66 major companies belonging to the League of Resident Theaters, only one was black. He felt that the supporters of black theatre used their funds to increase black hiring in primarily white theatres as opposed to creating a theatre for the black community. Hw wanted to have more black theaters established to cater to the black actors as well as draw in black audiences. He attacks the increasingly popular trend of “colorblind casting” which basically meant casting black actors in roles traditionally

Langston Hughes clearly connects with a wide range of audiences through the simplicity that surrounds his poetry. The beauty of this manner in which he wrote his poetry, is that it grasp people by illustrating his narratives of the common lifestyles experienced by the current American generation. His art form expresses certain questionable ideologies of life and exposes to the audience what it takes to fully comprehend what being an American truly means. Each individual poem describes and illustrates the strength and hardships the African American community was experiencing. Through his literature art form of poetry, Hughes was able to convey the common assertions of

“Langston Hughes: Beyond The Music and The Rhythm of An Extraordinary Black Artist.” JazzMuzic 23 (2001): 35-39.

August Wilson’s real name is Fredrick August Kittel, and he was born on April 27, 1945. His father was a white German immigrant baker. Wilson was the fourth of six children that lived with their mother in Pittsburgh. His father hardly ever visited them, their mother raised them alone. Their mother was a cleaning woman, but her work did not make enough to bring the children out of poverty. When he was in high school he dropped out because of a racist problem that happened there. So far he has had three marriages. His plays usually show the exclusion of African Americans from history (Shannon 16). He has many ways of writing stories, but his themes "explore and communicate the black experience in a way which seems particular to blacks" but

While reading literature, we manage to forget that they have true roots to what is being written and what they actually represent. When looking at the similarities of how literature is represented it obvious to see that there are certain socially constructed groups presented. Although these socially constructed groups do vary throughout literature, they still tend to be very similar. In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use,” Lorraine Hansberry play “A Raisin in the Sun,” and Langston Hughes’s poems “Harlem” and “Theme for English B” they evaluate the social construction of African Americans. What makes these authors so alike is the similarities that they share; being that they were all born in the early 1900’s, are all of African American ethnicity, and acknowledge the social construct of African Americans in these works. Looking at each of these works of literature they represent the struggles that African Americans faced when trying to be seen as equal, by allowing these works to be shown in different insights towards the battles faced in their movement towards being seen as equal.

     It was then that he began to pursue a writing career. At the time he got his first typewriter, he was also introduced to the blues and the black rights movement, of which both had great influences on his writing. Also during that time, he dropped his birth father’s name. Though he was unable to succeed in poetry, he was able to transition himself into a successful playwright. After visiting a friend in St. Paul, Minnesota, he decided to stay. At the urging of his friend, he wrote his first play, Jitney, set in a gypsy-cab station, and another following that, Fullerton Street. Only afterwards was he able to concentrate solely on composing, eventually producing Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, his breakthrough product, which was based on a blues singer Gertrude “Ma” Rainey. Then he wrote Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and Fences, which was based on his stepfather who could not gain a football scholarship because of his ethnicity.

August Wilson was born in a ghetto area of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania to his white father,

I think the main idea of his art activism is to create awareness of minority groups, and their history, almost like the Guerilla Girls raising awareness of feminism (Getlein 525). Wilson's exclusive art tactic is to observe and critique the established display of art and artifacts

Langston Hughes is an extremely successful and well known black writer who emerged from the Harlem Renaissance (“Langston Hughes” 792). He is recognized for his poetry and like many other writers from the Harlem Renaissance, lived most of his life outside of Harlem (“Langston Hughes” 792). His personal experiences and opinions inspire his writing intricately. Unlike other writers of his time, Hughes expresses his discontent with black oppression and focuses on the hardships of his people. Hughes’ heartfelt concern for his people’s struggle evokes the reader’s emotion. His appreciation for black music and culture is evident in his work as well. Langston Hughes is a complex poet whose profound works provide insight into all aspects of black

Langston Hughes is one the most renowned and respected authors of twentieth century America not simply one of the most respected African-American authors, though he is certainly this as well, but one of the most respected authors of the period overall. A large part of the respect and admiration that the man and his work have garnered is due to the richness an complexity of Hughes' writing, both his poetry and his prose and even his non-fictions. In almost all of his texts, Hughes manages at once to develop and explore the many intricacies and interactions of the human condition and specifically of the experience growing up and living as a black individual in a white-dominated and explicitly anti-Black society while at the same time, while at the same time rendering his human characters and their emotions in a simple, straightforward, and immensely accessible fashion. Reading the complexity behind the surface simplicity of his works is at once enjoyable and edifying.

The Harlem Renaissance was an evolutionary period in terms of African-American cultural expression; in fact, the movement changed the way that black musicians, poets, authors, and even ordinary people perceived themselves. One of the most influential poets of the time was Langston Hughes. Hughes’ works display a pride in being black that most African-Americans are too afraid to show, even today. Moreover, he adamantly refused to submit to the sentiment that he should be ashamed of his heritage, instead believing that “no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself.”(p1990 From the Negro Artist). In the article “‘Don’t Turn Back’: Langston Hughes, Barack Obama, and Martin Luther King, Jr.” by Jason Miller, Miller analyzes how Hughes’ poetry has been used by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama and how the House of Un-american Activities Committee affected that use.

The tone that August Wilson uses is an approachable and lofty blend at the same time. To begin with the protagonist of fences, Troy is a mindful man whose dreams are obstructed, this makes him have confidence in self-made fantasies. The play first begins with an entertaining story about his struggle with a personified Death character.

Credited as being the most recognizable figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes played a vital role in the Modernist literary movement and the movement to revitalize African American culture in the early 20th century. Hughes’s poems reflect his personal struggle and the collective struggle of African Americans during this cultural revival.

The development of jazz, blues and literature in harlem shine a big light on langston hughes the famous writer .Who was one of harlem 's famous writer for his poetry “ Harlem Dream Deferred”.Langston Hughes is broadly viewed as one of the best artists who ever strolled the earth. A number of his subjects concentrated on the issues that were going up against the race, fairness and