Let America Be America Again |
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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! | |
― Langston Hughes | |
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On This Day In: | |
2016 | Dear Automakers |
2015 | And Some Not So Brave Too |
2014 | In My Lifetime… |
2013 | Democracy |
2012 | Borrowed Expectations |
2011 | Not Necessarily True |
Dream Of Dreamers
April 13, 2017 by kmabarrett
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