Langston Hughes, Kids Who Die (1938)
This is for the kids who die,
For kids will die certainly.
The old and rich will live on awhile,
Kids will die in the swamps of Mississippi
Organizing sharecroppers.
Kids will die in the streets of Chicago
Kids will die in the orange groves of California
Telling others to get together.
All kinds of kids will die
Who don't believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment
Of course, the wise and the learned
Who pen editorials in the papers,
And the gentlemen with Dr. in front of their names.
Who make surveys and write books.
Will live on weaving words to smother the kids who die,
And the bribe-reaching police,
And the blood-loving generals,
And the money-loving preachers
Will all raise their hands against the kids who die,
Beating them with laws and clubs and bayonets and bullets
For the kids who die are like iron in the blood of the people—
And the old and rich don't want the people
To taste the iron of the kids who die,
Don't want the people to get wise to their own power,
To believe an Angelo Herndon, or even get together.
Maybe, now, there will be no monument for you
Maybe your bodies'll be lost in a swamp.
Or a prison grave, or the potter's field,
Or the rivers where you're drowned like Leibknecht.
You are sure yourselves that it is coming—
When the marching feet of the masses
Will raise for you a living monument of love,
And black hands and white hands clasped as one,
And a song that reaches the sky—
The song of the life triumphant
Through the kids who die.
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