Langston Hughes -- novelist, playwright, poet, and shining star of the Harlem Renaissance -- was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902, 114 years ago today.

Here he is describing how he came to write his great poem  "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" -- and then reading it.  It all began, he recalls, when he took a long train ride that crossed the Mississippi River at twilight, which jogged some memories.