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!
first
published in Esquire (July 1936)
©1994 Estate of
Langston Hughes