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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLet America Be America Again - Langston Hughes (1936)
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(Theres never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this homeland of the free.)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slaverys scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for ones own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the People, humble, hungry, mean
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet todayO, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet Im the one who dreamt our basic dream
In that old world while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
Thats made America the land it has become.
O, Im the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home
For Im the one who left dark Irelands shore,
And Polands plain, and Englands grassy lea,
And torn from black Africs strand I came
To build a homeland of the free.
The free.
Who said the free?
Nevilledog
(51,064 posts)kimbutgar
(21,111 posts)A 5th grader read this poem and after she finished, the room was silent was for a good minute and I had tears in my eyes and noticed several other teachers having the same response. Then the room erupted in applause.
Thank you for sharing.
dhill926
(16,336 posts)could have been written yesterday....