Let America Be America Again: by Langston Hughes

Let America Be America Again: by Langston Hughes

Why This Poem?

The Poem

Preach, 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 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?

Rhetorical Devices

• Rhetorical Questions

"Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?"

"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?"

• Simile

"From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives, we must take back our land again, America!"

• Metaphor

"I am the worker sold to the machine."

• Personification

"Let [America] be the pioneer on the plain..."

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.

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!

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 men who never got ahead.

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

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!

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?

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.

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!

• Alliteration

"Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-"

"O, let my land be a land where Liberty..."

"For all the dreams we’ve dreamed and all the songs we’ve sung and all the hopes we’ve held..."

• Situational Irony

America, the "homeland of the free", deals in slavery, racial superiority, discrimination, persecution, power struggles, poverty, criminal activity, corruption, and injustice.

• Parallel Structure

"Of profit, power, gain...Of grab the land...Of grab the gold...Of grab the ways...Of work the men..."

"Let America be America...Let it be...Let it be..."

"I am the poor white...I am the Negro...I am the red man...I am the immigrant...I am the young man...I am the farmer...I am the worker...I am the Negro...I am the people...I am the man..."

SOAPSTone

S: Langston Hughes

O: America's failure to be America

A: Hughes' readers, specifically Americans

P: To inspire, to raise awareness

STone: America // Imperative, Disappointment, Bitter, Condemning, Hopeful, Optimistic