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Born in Joplin, Missouri. His parents separate soon after his birth, his father eventually settling in Mexico. -
Enrolls at Columbia University with his father’s unwilling support. While at Columbia, Hughes is immersed in the culture of Harlem, meeting W.E.B. Du Bois, Countee Cullen, and other Black cultural leaders. He publishes poetry, including “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” -
Withdraws from Columbia and works on trading ships, traveling to Europe and the west coast of Africa. -
Publishes The Weary Blues to positive reviews. Enrolls in Lincoln University and publishes “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.”
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After traveling through Cuba and Haiti, publishes essays and poems criticizing capitalism, marking a major ideological turn to the left. Publishes The Negro Mother and Other Dramatic Recitations, which includes “The Black Clown.”
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Travels through the Soviet Union, China, and Japan, and publishes several revolutionary poems including “Goodbye Christ.” -
Living in California, publishes short story collection The Ways of White Folks to critical praise.
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Debates segregation on national radio. The FBI surveils Hughes for alleged communist activity, and he is attacked by the Special Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives.
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Hughes is denounced as a communist in the U.S. Senate by Albert Hawkes of New Jersey. Hughes writes a new collection of poems about Harlem, called Montage of Dreams Deferred.
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Hughes publishes Famous American Negroes, a volume for young readers, and makes no mention of W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson, at the time both closely identified with communism and under strong attack from conservatives.
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Visits Uganda for a writers’ conference and meets Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and other rising African writers. -
In the Post, Hughes attacks obscenity and profanity in new militant black writing and defends Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Appointed by President Johnson, Hughes travel to Senegal for the First World Festival of Negro Arts. As the leader of the American delegation, Hughes speaks on “Black Writers in a Troubled World.” After a month in Senegal, Hughes tours other parts of Africa for the State Department.
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On May 22, Hughes dies following complications from surgery. His body is cremated, and his ashes are placed in the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, under a mosaic cosmogram inspired by “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.”