“I sing America, too.” — Langston Hughes, 1901-1967
Hughes, a poet, novelist, playwright, and chronicler of black American life, kept America’s promise. Who is allowed to inherit the promise and who is removed from it?
Let’s make America America again.
Let’s keep it as an old dream.
Become a pioneer on the plains
I’m looking for a home where I can be free.
(America was never America to me.)
Let’s make America a dream dreamed by dreamers—
That great and strong land of love
A place where kings do not conspire and tyrants do not conspire.
That any human being can be crushed by those above them.
(America was never America to me.)
Oh, let my land be a land full of freedom
Not crowned with false patriotic wreaths,
But opportunities are real and life is free.
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(Equality never existed for me,
There is also no freedom in this “homeland of freedom.” )
Hey, who are you muttering in the dark?
I am a poor white man who was deceived and separated.
I am a black man who bears the scars of slavery.
I am a red man who was chased from the earth.
I am an immigrant who grasps hope.
And all I find is the same old stupid plan
A dog that eats dogs, powerfully crushes the weak.
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed,
And all the songs we sang
And all the hopes we had
And all the flags we raise
Millions of people have nothing worth our paychecks—
Except for the dream, which is almost dead today.
Oh, let’s make America America again—
A land I haven’t been to yet…
It should still be so.
My land is–
The poor, the Indians, the blacks, me…
Who created America?
whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hands are in the foundry, the plow in the rain,
We must bring back our great dreams.
Oh, yes,
I say clearly:
America was never America to me,
Still, I take this oath…
So will America!
Rack and out of the ruins,
Grafting, stealth, lies,
we the people must redeem
land, mines, plants, rivers,
Mountains and endless plains…
And let’s build America again.
-
“Deep river” — Paul Robeson (1898–1976), from the original recording (2:17).
A singer, actor, athlete, lawyer, and political dissident, Robeson sang of the gap between America’s celebration of freedom and its denial. The spiritual expresses a longing for the Promised Land.
Precautions
Langston Hughes “Make America America Again” esquireJuly 1936. was later collected new song (1938). Here is an excerpt and summary.
Paul Robeson recorded “Deep River” in 1927. See “The Coming of Deep River” by Wayne D. Shirley. american music 15, no. 4 (Winter 1997).
On the founding of the United States, see Joseph J. Ellis. The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of America’s FoundingGordon S. Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution. Ellis emphasizes the moral contradictions at the heart of the nation’s founding, while Wood emphasizes the truly radical release of egalitarian and democratic energies. Read together, they suggest that 1776 was the beginning that opened up the possibility of democracy and left grave injustices unresolved.
politics of jesus
shrewdly honest
Approximately 2+2=5
Source: 2 + 2 = 5 – williamgreen.substack.com
