This poem arrived in my e-mail this morning, courtesy of the Academy of American Poets (poets.org) Poem of the Day. It speaks for itself on this day of remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.
Let America
Be America Again
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.
(There's 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 slavery's 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 one's 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 today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the
years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the 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
That's made America the land it has
become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's
shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy
lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief
today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our
pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is
free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's,
ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and
pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the
rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's
lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster
death,
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 plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green
states--
And make America again!
From
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Alfred A. Knopf,
Inc. Copyright © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used with
permission.
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