Let America Be America Again - Poem by Langston Hughes
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 dreamedā
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.
(Thereās never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this āhomeland of the free.ā)
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 slaveryās scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seekā
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 oneās 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, meanā
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet todayāO, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet Iām 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
Thatās made America the land it has become.
O, Iām the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my homeā
For Iām the one who left dark Irelandās shore,
And Polandās plain, and Englandās grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africaās strand I came
To build a āhomeland of the free.ā
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 weāve dreamed
And all the songs weāve sung
And all the hopes weāve held
And all the flags weāve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our payā
Except the dream thatās almost dead today.
O, let America be America againā
The land that never has been yetā
And yet must beāthe land where every man is free.
The land thatās mineāthe poor manās, Indianās, Negroās, MEā
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 chooseā
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the peopleās 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 oathā
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 plainā
All, all the stretch of these great green statesā
And make America again!
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