Countee Cullen was a poet, author, and playwright who attended DeWitt High School, Harvard University, and New York University. He lost his parents and was raised by his grandmother until her death. After her death, Carolyn Belle and Reverend Frederick A. Cullen took him in. While in high school he edited the school newspaper and the literary magazine. Mr. Cullen was inspired by works of John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and A.E. Housman who were poets of the time. He wrote by the inspiration of African American culture and lives. Countee Cullen was seen as the leading light of the renaissance.
Langston Hughes
D.O.B.- February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri
D.O.D.- May 22, 1967 in NY,NY
Langston Hughes attended Colombia University and Lincoln University and became a play writer and poet. Hughes' parents separated after birth, his mom moving to place to place and his dad moving to Mexico. He was raised by is grandmother until early teens, where he reunited with his mother. He was a contributor to several magazines but got rejected many times. Langston went to Paris and lived there for a while, until returning to the US. He was inspired by the poetry of Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman. Langston Hughes with the help of Vachel Lindsay, who promoted his poetry, and Carl Van Vechten, who helped get his first poetry book. Langston Hughes was the first to use jazz rhythms and dialect to depict the life of urban blacks in his work.