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 dreamedâ
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.
(Thereâs never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this âhomeland of the free.â)
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 slaveryâs scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seekâ
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 oneâs 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, meanâ
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet todayâO, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet Iâm 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
Thatâs made America the land it has become.
O, Iâm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my homeâ
For Iâm the one who left dark Irelandâs shore,
And Polandâs plain, and Englandâs grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africaâs strand I came
To build a âhomeland of the free.â
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 weâve dreamed
And all the songs weâve sung
And all the hopes weâve held
And all the flags weâve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our payâ
Except the dream thatâs almost dead today.
O, let America be America againâ
The land that never has been yetâ
And yet must beâthe land where every man is free.
The land thatâs mineâthe poor manâs, Indianâs, Negroâs, MEâ
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 chooseâ
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the peopleâs lives,
We must take back our land again,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oathâ
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 plainâ
All, all the stretch of these great green statesâ
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