Langston Hughes

James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet,
 social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of
the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period that "the negro was in vogue" which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue"

No presentation of modern Black American History could be complete without
discussing Langston Hughes.