In 1939, Hughes established Los Angeles's New Negro Theater, which produced his plays Trouble Island, Angela Herndon Jones, and Don't You Want to Be Free? Resituated at Chicago's Grand Hotel, he wrote an autobiography, The Big Sea (1940), that mourned the decline of interest in black culture, as did the essay "When the Negro Was in Vogue." In addition to adult literature, Hughes assembled four volumes of children's stories about the adventures of a doughty, Harlem-based scamp, Jesse B. Semple, called "Simple." The adventures of the optimistic, street-smart youngster ran in the Chicago Defender and New York Post and dominates Simple Speaks His Mind (1950), Simple Takes a Wife (1952), Simple Stakes a Claim (1957), The Best of Simple (1961), Simple's Uncle Sam (1965), and a Broadway musical, Simply Heavenly (1957). Favorites of poetry anthologizers are "Dream Variations," "Harlem," and "Theme for English B" from his Harlem cycle, Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951).
Into the 1960s, Hughes continued to make headlines. He published a poetry anthology, Ask Your Mama: Twelve Moods for Jazz (1961), and his play Tambourines to Glory (1965) ran on Broadway. He died of cancer on May 22, 1967; a posthumous title, The Panther and the Lash (1967), rounded out his twelve published volumes.
