Advice To A Young Langston Hughes From His Father...

….who wanted him to become a Mining Engineer

”You can learn anything you put your mind to,” my father said. “And engineering is something that will make you some money. What do you want to do, live like a nigger all your life? Look at your mother, waiting table in a restaurant! Don’t you want to get anywhere?”

“Sure,” I said. “But I don’t want to be a mining engineer.”

“What do you want to be?”

“I don’t know. But I think a writer.”

“A writer?” my father said. “A writer? Do they make any money?”

“Some of them do, I guess.”

“I never heard of a colored one that did,” said my father.

Excerpt from: "The Big Sea: An Autobiography" by Langston Hughes.