James Presley on Let America Be America Again Southwest Review

Langston Hughes

Allow America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to exist.
Let it exist 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–
Allow it be that great strong state of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That whatsoever man be crushed by 1 above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land exist a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
Only opportunity is real, and life is gratis,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There'southward never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the gratuitous.")

Say, who are you lot that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed autonomously,
I am the Negro bearing slavery'due south scars.
I am the cherry man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the promise I seek–
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty shell the weak.

I am the young man, full of forcefulness and promise,
Tangled in that ancient endless concatenation
Of turn a profit, ability, gain, of grab the state!
Of take hold of the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of accept the pay!
Of owning everything for one's ain greed!

I am the farmer, bondservant to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, retainer to y'all all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got alee,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Nonetheless I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while nonetheless a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, and so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's fabricated America the land information technology has become.
O, I'thou the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I'yard the i who left night Ireland's shore,
And Poland'due south plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The gratuitous?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely non me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when nosotros strike?
The millions who have zippo for our pay?
For all the dreams nosotros've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags nosotros've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that'south almost dead today.

O, allow America exist America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every human is complimentary.
The state that's mine–the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME–
Who fabricated America,
Whose sweat and claret, whose faith and hurting,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, telephone call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of liberty does not stain.
From those who alive like leeches on the people'southward lives,
We must take dorsum our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plainly,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath–
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster decease,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plainly–
All, all the stretch of these great greenish states–
And make America again!

From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published past Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On "Allow America Be America Again"

James Presley

"Let America Be America Once again," published in Esquire and in the International Worker Order pamphlet A New Song (1938), pleads for fulfillment of the Dream that never was. Information technology speaks of the freedom and equality which America boasts, but never had. It looks frontwards to a 24-hour interval when "Freedom is crowned with no fake patriotic wreath" and America is "that great strong land of love." Hughes, though, is not limiting his plea to the downtrodden Negro; he includes, as well, the poor white, the Indian, the immigrant–farmer, worker, "the people" share the Dream that has not been. The Dream still beckons. In "Freedom'south Plow" he points out that "America is a dream" and the product of the seed of liberty is not but for all Americans but for all the world. The American Dream of brotherhood, liberty, and democracy must come to all peoples and all races of the world, he insists.
[. . . .]
Throughout Hughes's life–and his literary expression–the American Dream has appeared as a ragged, uneven, splotched, and often unattainable goal which often became a nightmare, but at that place is always hope of the fulfilled dream even in the darkest moments. During Globe State of war Ii Hughes, commenting on the American Negroes' role in the war, recognized this. ". . . we know," he said in a 1943 oral communication reprinted in The Langston Hughes Reader (1958),
that America is a state of transition. And we know information technology is inside our power to help in its further change toward a finer and better commonwealth dm whatever citizen has known earlier. The American Negro believes in democracy. We want to brand it real, complete, workable, not only for ourselves–the 15 million nighttime ones–but for all Americans all over the country.
The American Dream is bruised and often made a travesty for Negroes and other underdogs, Hughes keeps saying, but the American Dream does exist. And the Dream must exist fulfilled. In one of his verses he put it more plainly. He might accept been speaking to his harshest political critics or to the white youths who beat him up on that long-ago summertime twenty-four hour period in Chicago.

Listen, America–
I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you lot.

From "The American Dream of Langston Hughes." Southwest Review (1963).

mclaughlintherver.blogspot.com

Source: https://notthead.wordpress.com/2007/02/08/let-america-be-america-again/

Share this post