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Teacher's Guide for FOOTSTEPS Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance

March 2004

Teacher Guide prepared by: Leslie Anderson Morales.

Family experiences were a powerful influence in Langston Hughes's life. Identify 2-3 characteristics, interests, or experiences that you share with one or both parents. How about your grandparents?

Langston Hughes's experiences influences his work as a writer. He liked to read. He learned about history and storytelling by listening to older relatives. He was interested in politics and poetry.
  • What stories are told in your family?
  • Does the same person tell the story the same way with every telling?
  • Do different people in your family have different versions of the same story?
  • Write the story the way you like to hear it told to you OR write it as a poem.
Few African Americans had been able to make a career of writing. Langston Hughes struggled with confusion and depression. He challenged his pattern of fear and paralysis - he decided to take a "monumental journey." His destination was Africa.
  • What does "monumental journey" mean?
  • If you decided to challenge the feelings that were holding you back from your goal, what would you do?
  • If you have made a "monumental journey," how did your life change afterward?
Langston Hughes worked long, hard hours as a busboy while he tried to keep his dream alive. In your daily life, where have you encountered people who work long, hard hours in low-paying jobs? What do you think his or her dream might be? Would you be willing to work long, hard hours at a low-paying job while you pursued your dream?

Harlem was a thriving African American community. Well-educated people with professional jobs lived here. These folks included doctors, lawyers, teachers, accountants, and others. Many people from all walks of life moved to the neighborhood hoping to become successful.
  • Identify the events and ideas that caused the Harlem Renaissance to come into being.
  • Identify some organizations that were founded here. What did they have in common?
Creative people - musicians, writers, and painters - were drawn to Harlem. What did Harlem have to offer them? What did they offer to Harlem, the United States, and the world? What were their concerns?

In early 1931, Langston Hughes traveled South. He had a conversation with respected educator Mary McLeod Bethune at Bethune-Cookman College. She saw that he had the potential to be a great leader. She encouraged him to believe in himself. Hughes then traveled through the South and abroad.
Describe the experiences and observations that convinced him of his mission that he must respond to injustice as a writer and an artist.
Langston Hughes had associations with political organizations including the Communist Party. The United States government - the United States House Un-American Activities Committee and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) - investigated him. He lost opportunities to work and the scrutiny affected what he chose to publish. He discovered new audiences and eventually the United States government encouraged him to represent American writers abroad.

In the mid-1940s, Hughes had become very popular. His work celebrated everyday experiences. He had been sharply criticized for his work at the beginning of his career.
  • Why do you think Hughes's work was received differently at this point in his career?
  • Name an artist whose work you think is now considered more acceptable than when he or she first started to perform, paint, sculpt, or write.
The Harlem Renaissance is described on pages 32-33. Information about Hughes's contemporaries appears on pages 34-38.
Imagine that Langston Hughes has run into one of his contemporaries in Harlem - on the street, at a salon or club, perhaps an awards dinner. Write a page or two describing their encounter including dialogue and the setting.
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