Langston Hughes was an influential African American poet and writer born in 1902 in Missouri. He began writing poetry in the 8th grade and was inspired by blues and jazz music on his travels around the world. Hughes is best known for his poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" and was a major contributor to the Harlem Renaissance through his writings based on life in Harlem in the 1920s. He wrote 16 books of poems, 2 novels, and other works before passing away from cancer in 1967 in New York.