am again.
Thats made America the land it has become.
The steel of freedom does not stain.
Except the dream thats almost dead today.
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
America never was America to me,
And Polands plain, and Englands grassy lea,
For all the dreams weve dreamed
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
To build a "homeland of the free."
The millions shot down when we strike?
And all the songs weve sung
From those who live like leeches on the peoples lives,
Who made America,
And all the flags weve hung,
I say it plain,
For Im the one who left dark Irelands shore,
The land that never has been yet--
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
In search of what I meant to be my home--
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
America!
O, Im the man who sailed those early seas
We, the people, must redeem
The free?
We must take back our land again,
And torn from Black Africas strand I came
The land thats mine--the poor mans, Indians, Negros, ME--
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
Langston Hughes
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
O, let America be America again--
And all the hopes weve held
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!