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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 173.70.194.24 (talk) at 02:42, 9 February 2011 (→Residences: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Confusing

This page is SO poorly written! The first section about his parents and their race is completely confusing - seems like he was married to his grandmother! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.111.2.52 (talk) 19:42, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notes/citations

Added further notes and citations for reference.TonyCrew 23:35, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Replaced dead link with new open link & added further notes/citations and a photograph of book cover for the Ways of White Folks, 1934.TonyCrew 00:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would you be willing to add the Langston Hughes Middle School in Reston, VA link to this site? The URL is http://www.fcps.edu/HughesMS Gljones1 (talk) 18:37, 28 July 2008 (UTC) Les Jones, web curator, Langston Hughes MS in Reston, VA[reply]

Setting up archives

  • Hi all Langston Hughes editors, After reverting some vandalism to this talk page I decided to follow wiki protocol regarding archiving talk pages, because the talk page was getting rather long (>32K). The archive box should be pretty self-explanatory. --lquilter 18:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sexual orientation

If one is so-called "closeted" throughout one's life, there is no evidence to prove one's sexuality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.168.15.49 (talk) 00:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

THERE IS HARDLY NO EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THE FACT OF HIS SEXUAL RELATION. IF SO, NEEDS TO BE ADDED AND NEEDS TO GO IN THE BIO SECTION —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.8.238.50 (talk) 18:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hardly think that Hughes' orientation, closeted or not, belongs under "trivia." MJFiorello 02:19, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Created the category of Visual Media where the sexuality of Hughes is also noted. More, made more specific his role and involvement in the Spainish Civil War where he was only a correspondent.TonyCrew 19:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Added documentary film to Visual MediaTonyCrew 20:41, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I hate how people are so quick to get some claim him as a homosexual when his sexuality was never concrete. His private life remains ambiguous, regardless of how some people interpret his poems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Infinity2 (talk • contribs) 09:24, 2 June 2007

Usere Infinity22, please refrain from such POV prejudiced diatribes absent of research. Moreover, please do not come in and change DOCUMENTED footnotes/quotes. Your actions constitute vandalism.TonyCrew 15:54, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User Infinity22, please stop changing material that you obviously are not familar with. You are adding prejudiced materialTonyCrew 01:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • It seems like sexual orientation ought to be discussed more in the biography section. A short couple of sentences about the fact that he was gay; never married; very closeted. ... Then the "visual media" references won't just introduce this new biographical material out of the blue. I'll work on it. --lquilter 18:02, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


User "TonyCrew," please do not attack another user for stating his or her opinion. Your claims of vandalism constitute harassment, and for someone who makes the assertion that someone is not "familiar with a certain material," you definitely need to acquaint yourself with a dictionary, because "familar" is not a word. Thank you for your compliance. Furthermore, please do not insinuate that my favorite poet is a homosexual without concrete evidence. Did Langston Hughes ever admit he was homosexual? Nope. Therefore there has never been, and will never be any evidence to suggest accordingly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.73.40 (talk) 03:05, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Photograph

Repositioned picture of Hughes' home due to Visual Media being moved to better position in article. This should improve the aesthetics of the article.TonyCrew 00:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox for writers

User Emerson7, please, the infobox follows wiki guidelines for writers. Adding "expressed age" upon Hughes' death is not necessary. His age the day he died is already included in article.TonyCrew 05:16, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ostrom encyclopedia

You might add A Langston Hughes Encyclopedia by Hans Ostrom (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002) to the bibliography. Thanks for the good work. Ostrom 17:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Black

I'm not sure if there's a wikipedia policy on the matter, but for an important pro-black right peot/campaginer etc., nowhere does it actually say he is black. While one could quite easily deduce this from the article and/or photo, would it not be more helpful just to slip in the adjective in the first paragraph? Larklight 10:53, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Larklight. Your concern is already included in the "Career" section of the article where the vital chacteristics of Hughes and his works are summed up.TonyCrew 21:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
While many readers might expect the article's first words to be:"...was an African American poet, novelist, playwright,..." (emphasis mine), I rather admire the author's de-emphasis of a fact which (as Larklight also noted) can hardly be overlooked or mistaken by anyone who's viewing the page. Doc Tropics 00:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On a similar note...

I'd perused this article before, but I just noticed something that caused me to read it very carefully, twice:

There is an LGBT banner at the top of the page, and at least 2 of the refs are from books about gay/lesbian authors, but nowhere in the article could I find a specific mention regarding his sexuality. It's possible I overlooked something obvious, but it seems like a curious omission given the banner and refs. I'm not necessarily advocating that it should be addressed explicitly; some might argue that it's not relevant unless he was "notable" for being gay.

I'm wondering if Tony might shed some light on this and satisfy my otherwise idle curiousity? Doc Tropics 00:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Doc, Actually your question is addressed in the article. Specifically in the Visual Media section.TonyCrew 15:26, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure how I missed that, it must have been either too early in the morning, or too late in the evening...I just don't have a good excuse. Thanks for pointing out the obvious : ) Doc Tropics 00:03, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Doc, don't worry about anything. I can understand the feeling. :-) TonyCrew 22:58, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't directly about Hughes but I believe it is important, nevertheless. "where he became a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, the first black fraternal organization founded at a historically black college and university"- not true, they were not the first. Ever heard of Alpha Phi Alpha on the campus of Howard University? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.117.115.172 (talk • contribs) 05:43, 31 October 2007

The statement is in fact correct. Omega Psi Phi is the first black fraternity founded at a historically black university (Howard University) whereas Alpha Phi Alpha is the first black fraternity, founded at Cornell University, which is not considered a historically black college or university. –panda 06:03, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
While this statement is correct it should be noted that usually the fraternities are not referred to by the type of school where it was first founded. It is usually a statement like, "Alpha Phi Alpha was the first black fraternity". Period. I know the wikipedia page for Omega Psi Phi puts it in that manner but people familiar with the fraternities (not in the fraternity) don't refer to it in that manner. That is why the first comment was brought up. Just clarifying a bit.Dctoast (talk) 05:39, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Trivia tag

Removed "trivia tag" to incorporate nonsuperfluous trivia into article as warranted by trivia guidelinesTonyCrew 02:33, 22 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Removing photo

The caption inside the image of Hughes testifying before the House says he is testifying before Senator McCarthy. I have no problem with someone cropping the photo and reuploading it. Ryratt 05:52, 23 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Restored photograph. The picture is from a past historical event. Hughes was required to testify at two o'clock on a Monday afternoon before the Senate Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations led by Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy himself questioned Hughes with Roy Cohn present and also asking questions of Hughes. It is on documented government record.TonyCrew 06:29, 23 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Again, the text caption says "Langston Hughes, before the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953", the article also says he spoke before the House, yet the bitmap caption says he is before the Senate. Please choose which ever is the correct one. Ryratt 04:47, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The text has been corrected. TonyCrew 18:25, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

Added further notes/citations as a safeguard.TonyCrew 19:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Photos

A couple of comments about the photos, which are great. Separately signed for threated discussion. TonyCrew, you appear to have been the major contributor for a while, so I'm guessing you added these; do you or other editors have thoughts about my comments below? --lquilter 18:21, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Placement in "notes" / refs

(1) It's disruptive to have them in the notes section -- makes it very hard to read the notes because of the way the text flows. Was it intentional, to illustrate the notes? If so, then there should probably be more attention paid to the CSS to get the flow better. If not, however, then I'd suggest that we keep the notes pure text (unless an illustration is really absolutely essential), and move the images to the text of the article. To the extent the article has too many images maybe we need to pare them and pick the most important. Or, include in a footnote, the REFERENCE link to the image, rather than actually embedding the image for display in the note. --lquilter 18:21, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy of

(2) The "courtesy of" notes are inappropriate. Wikipedia requires public domain content, noted GFDL permissions, or fair use rationales for images and other media. Unless these have specific "permission statements", then they should just be described. Source is fine, but "courtesy of" implies that permission is given only for wikipedia -- which is not okay per wikipedia image policy. So, if the images really *are* "courtesy of" then we need to reexamine whether they can really be included in light of WP's policy; if they are not "courtesy of" but are actually GFDL, public domain, or fair use, then they need not say "courtesy of". --lquilter 18:21, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Death

The article makes it clear that he's dead in the first sentence. Plus, the Death subsection discusses the circumstances of his death. –panda (talk) 01:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ooops, my bad. I totally missed all those. Thanks for clarifying, and I apologize for the waste of time. 24.131.128.231 (talk) 22:44, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Personal life

Can you direct me to Hughes' "Personal?" Thank you. Mig (talk) 22:18, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't a separate personal life section; the relevant info is in the Adulthood subsection. Nietzsche 2 (talk) 11:02, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Homosexuality

There is nothing in the references cited to support the initial thesis of the following passage:

Italic textAcademics and biographers today acknowledge that Hughes was a homosexual and included homosexual codes in many of his poems, similar in manner to Walt Whitman, whose work Hughes cited as another influence on his poetry, and most patently in the short story Blessed Assurance which deals with a father's anger over his son's effeminacy and queerness.[14][15][16][17][18][14][19][20].Italic text

The problem is the generalization that 'Academics and biographers today acknowledge...'. No concrete evidence is cited to back this extremely generic assertion, and the works cited simply do not uphold the hyperbole. These are weasel words. Surely some academics do support the thesis, but the references don't support anything other than some vague ambiguities. This should be adjusted for a properly encyclopedic article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gonzeaux (talk • contribs) 06:12, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also not sure about those citations. Are there eight sources that all support the entire sentence? It would make more sense to spread them throughout (i.e. a source that says "American biographers today acknowledge...", another to support Whitman as an influence and another to support "most patently in the short story"). --Midnightdreary (talk) 12:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Early recognition

It should be a "noted" importance that Langston Hughes recieved early recognition and mentorship-support from Charlotte Louisa Quick ( aka: Mrs. Rufus Osgood Mason ), the widow of renowned Physcian-Surgeon, and Rockefeller Patron, Dr. Rufus Osgood Mason. At first, the influence of Mrs. Mason on the young man was motovative and inspiring, but later they would have a falling out, and go their seperate ways. Aedwardmoch (talk) 07:00, 28 July 2009 (UTC) A Edward Moch Aedwardmoch (talk) 07:00, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notable awards/works

I am student and use Wikipedia regularly as a research resource for many of my courses. I was wondering if someone could please gather a list of the notable awards Hughes recived and/or some notable works of his. It doesn't necessarily have to be added to the page, but I think it would make a nice addition. Thank you Rule.number.5 (talk) 19:31, 3 December 2008 (UTC)fsghaw eh[reply]

ok —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.125.30.15 (talk) 23:14, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Legacy

In 2009, Langston Hughes High School will open in Atlanta, Georgia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.192.20.254 (talk) 14:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

why the hell she tell me to come down here —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.157.106.67 (talk) 18:25, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image layout

I reduced the size and description of several images because the page layout looked very cluttered (attribution doesn't need to be included on every picture since it can be found on the file description). All of the images found in the "Career" section are now right-aligned, only because the quotes don't look right with left-aligned. If someone else can figure out how to make them look okay, then feel free to revert that part of my edit. I took this photo today, but I guess there's no room. :-/ APK thinks he's ready for his closeup 23:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Langston Hughs

Langston Hughs...Glen Sarver is always high or drunk if you ask him what he is on he will tell you something different every day. whether it be tripple C's weed or coke its always something. thats how amazing Langston Hughs is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.139.224.110 (talk) 17:45, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalsim

This page has been vandalized.

01:31, 30 October 2009 (UTC) --jaaronw 01:32, 30 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaaronw (talk • contribs)

"A New Song"

I think this poem should be deleted, or at least abridged. It's an eyesore, covering a good portion of the page and requiring the reader either to read through all of it or to skip it. Either way the readers focus is broken.Lehi (talk) 20:23, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Picture is not Langston

The Picture is of Wallace Thurman —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.197.53.96 (talk) 17:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"I, Too, Sing America" Poem Publication Date

Since Langston Hughes died in 1967, I'm pretty sure he didn't write this poem in the 1990's. At [1] it says he wrote it in 1925. So I'm gonna change it. Bradj47 (talk) 23:27, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Ways of White Folks

{{editsemiprotected}} Please wikify one or more uses of The Ways of White Folks, the name of one of his books (editor's choice as to which uses and how many); The American Collection produced a film on a short story from that collection, and wikifying it here will help encourage an article to be created on that book. There is already an image of the book's cover. Thanks. 72.244.206.73 (talk) 01:11, 15 July 2010 (UTC) P.S. Bonus points (or a barnstar) if you also create the stub so I could add an infobox and flesh out the article.[reply]

 Done   — Jeff G. ツ 02:24, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]


"one of Scottish and one of Jewish descent": was the Jewish one also Scottish? Please clarify! Kwenchin (talk) 19:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

vandalism

We seem to be attracting a lot of vandalism in the last while. Could we put a protection on the page? Thanks Span (talk) 17:43, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Request raised on Requests for page protection. Fæ (talk) 18:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've semi-protected the page for three months, is this ok? Nev1 (talk) 18:19, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your speedy action. Hopefully the vandals will get terribly bored now. Fæ (talk) 18:29, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Great. Thanks Span (talk) 19:20, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request from Hollybass, 30 November 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} Langston Hughes' first collection of poems is the Weary Blues in 2926. "I, too, Sing America" is not a collection but a single poem. I recommend either renaming the category to "Poetry Collections and Notable Poems" or removing individual poems and placing them in their own category.

Hollybass (talk) 02:39, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Partly done: I think the proper solution is just to remove that poem from the list of collections. We can't list every single "notable poem" he ever had; the only exceptions I could see would be a single poem so notable that it had it's own wikipage (because it had been regularly and notably commented on by reliable sources). So, I'm going to remove it. If any of the others are single poems, please list them here and they can be removed, too.

Edit request from Unterbildner, 4 February 2011

{{edit semi-protected}}

Change

Non-fiction books

  • The Big Sea. New York: Knopf, 1940
  • Famous American Negroes. 1954
  • I Wonder as I Wander. New York: Rinehart & Co., 1956
  • A Pictorial History of the Negro in America, with Milton Meltzer. 1956
  • Famous Negro Heroes of America. 1958
  • Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP. 1962

into

Non-fiction books

Langston Hughes' autobiographical volumes
  • The Big Sea. New York: Knopf, 1940
  • Famous American Negroes. 1954
  • I Wonder as I Wander. New York: Rinehart & Co., 1956
  • A Pictorial History of the Negro in America, with Milton Meltzer. 1956
  • Famous Negro Heroes of America. 1958
  • Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP. 1962


Unterbildner (talk) 12:24, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is already a full listing of works. I'm not sure the graphic adds anything.Span (talk) 08:16, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is no simple listing nor vandalism but an overview of the chapters of the two autobiographical volumes including publication dates and the decade the reminiscenes are set in. I am convinced this is worthwile information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Unterbildner (talk • contribs) 20:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Marking as not done, as the edit was contested. Please continue discussion and form a consensus before readding the edit semi-protected template. -Atmoz (talk) 00:37, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This page outlines the recommended works listing format. Span (talk) 00:48, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Residences

It says at the bottom of the article that Hughes live in New Jersey's Union County at some point, but there is no mention of it in the article itself. After a little snooping I found at least confirmation of a residence in Westfield, New Jersey. Can this be confirmed? 173.70.194.24 (talk) 02:42, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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