Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes

[Ian Livingston]

Ever see what happens when someone throws as meat scrap into a kennel of hungry dogs?

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> On Jan 31, 2017, at 8:33 AM, Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
> But what happens when the "poor white” people attack the brownish-skinned people (from beige Jewish people and light-skinned immigrants from Mexico and the Middle East,  to Asian, "Red" and “Negro”  and all mixed up)?  Hughes outlined a brave coalition,  (lines 18-21),  but I fear it’s fallen apart as a large number of the white part joins with the government and sets them all at each other - in a perversion of “dog eat dog.”     (To say nothing of attacks on folks with different sexual behaviors or gender concerns?)  
> 
> Becky 
> 
>> On Jan 31, 2017, at 7:27 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> http://cbsd.org/cms/lib010/PA01916442/Centricity/Domain/2773/LetAmericabeAmericaagain.pdf
>> 
>> 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! 
> 
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