Summary Of Let America Be America Again By Langston Hughes

The well known poet Langston Hughes was an inspiring character during the Harlem Renaissance to provide a push for the black communities to fight for the rights they deserved. Hughes wrote his poetry to deliver important messages and provide support to the movements. When he was at a young age a teacher introduced him to poets Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman, and they inspired him to start his own. Being a “darker brother,” as he called blacks, he experienced and wanted his rights, and that inspired him. Although literary critics felt that Langston Hughes portrayed an unattractive view of black life, the poems demonstrate reality. Hughes used the Blues and Jazz to add effect to his work as well as his extravagant word use and literary

Langston Hughes was the leading voice of African American people in his time, speaking through his poetry to represent blacks. His Influence through his poems are seen widely not just by blacks but by those who enjoy poetry in other races and social classes. Hughes poems, Harlem, The Negro speaks of rivers, Theme for English B, and Negro are great examples of his output for the racial inequality between the blacks and whites. The relationship between whites and blacks are rooted in America's history for the good and the bad. Hughes poems bring the history at large and present them in a proud manner. The injustice that blacks face because of their history of once being in bondage is something they are constantly reminded and ridiculed for but must overcome and bring to light that the thoughts of slavery and inequality will be a lesson and something to remember for a different future where that kind of prejudice is not found so widely.

Langston Hughes was a poet with many artistic abilities. His writing and drawings established the lifestyles of many African Americans during this time. In a poem called “I, Too” Hughes express his feelings as an African American, a brother, and someone who deserves to fit in society. He states “I, too sing America” (1039). Hughes saw himself as an individual who has a voice in America even though his skin is a little darker. In a poem called “Democracy” Hughes states: “I have as much right as the other fellow has to stand on my own two feet and own the land” (1043). Hughes was speaking for every African American whom were still dealing with segregation, racism, and freedom.

As time has passed humanity still tends to separate each other based on our racial being rather than seeing each other as one human race. Langston Hughes’s, “A New Song,” published in 1938 introduces the idea of a new vision of social relations in American society. Hughes’s original version of this poem written in 1933, does not encompass his growing anger on this subject that is dwelled upon in his published version. However, with Hughes’s powerful tone and word choice throughout his 1938 rendition, his reader is able to understand his urge to transform America into an interracial culture. (Central Idea) His poem voices the importance of transforming society into a multiethnic unity and working-class established through cultural ties between whites and blacks. (Thesis) Hughes voices this crucial need to change through his emphasis on African American’s past struggles as opposed to the new dream, his militant tone, and through expressing the role that the establishment of cultural ties plays in society.

     The voice of one person can send a profound sound into the hearts of people to help liberate one’s mind. That profound sound is seen through poetry. The creative structure and style of poetry creates a different form of writing that can either have rhythm, alliteration or have a direct message. In the poem “I Too Sing America”, by Langston Hughes had a significant message in that he desired to voice his expression on the issue of black oppression in America. Langston basic themes focused on the American Dream and the possibilities of hope and advancement were constantly present in his poetry. The tension between the unrealized dream and the realities of the black experience in

Langston Hughes clearly connects with a wide range of audiences through the simplicity that surrounds his poetry. The beauty of this manner in which he wrote his poetry, is that it grasp people by illustrating his narratives of the common lifestyles experienced by the current American generation. His art form expresses certain questionable ideologies of life and exposes to the audience what it takes to fully comprehend what being an American truly means. Each individual poem describes and illustrates the strength and hardships the African American community was experiencing. Through his literature art form of poetry, Hughes was able to convey the common assertions of

Life, liberty, freedom, equality, opportunity, and so many other words have been used to describe the United States of America. Every American child grows up with the words “the land of the free” pounded into their heads, and every morning schools declare America as a place of “liberty and justice for all.” Such inflated rhetoric presents America with large shoes to fill. Thus, America’s shortcomings should not be surprising. Langston Hughes and Upton Sinclair were two 20th Century writers, who saw past this idealistic talk and saw the jungle that the United States really was. Langston Hughes wrote in his poem “Let America be America Again”, “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 himself is free. –(America was never America to me) (1).” He highlights not only the experience of African Americans during the 1930s, but identifies with other oppressed groups including immigrants writing, “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.” Likewise, Upton Sinclair conveyed his repulsion to immigrant oppression during the Industrial Revolution in his book The Jungle, emphasizing the gullibility behind trusting the grandiloquence of the American dream.

     In the poem "Let America Be America Again," Langston Hughes paints a vivid word picture of a depressed America in the 1930's. To many living in America, the idealism presented as the American Dream had escaped their grasp. In this poetic expression, a speaker is allowed to voice the unsung Americans' concern of how America was intended to be, had become to them, and could aspire to be again.

Langston Hughes is an extremely successful and well known black writer who emerged from the Harlem Renaissance (“Langston Hughes” 792). He is recognized for his poetry and like many other writers from the Harlem Renaissance, lived most of his life outside of Harlem (“Langston Hughes” 792). His personal experiences and opinions inspire his writing intricately. Unlike other writers of his time, Hughes expresses his discontent with black oppression and focuses on the hardships of his people. Hughes’ heartfelt concern for his people’s struggle evokes the reader’s emotion. His appreciation for black music and culture is evident in his work as well. Langston Hughes is a complex poet whose profound works provide insight into all aspects of black

Langston Hughes is one the most renowned and respected authors of twentieth century America not simply one of the most respected African-American authors, though he is certainly this as well, but one of the most respected authors of the period overall. A large part of the respect and admiration that the man and his work have garnered is due to the richness an complexity of Hughes' writing, both his poetry and his prose and even his non-fictions. In almost all of his texts, Hughes manages at once to develop and explore the many intricacies and interactions of the human condition and specifically of the experience growing up and living as a black individual in a white-dominated and explicitly anti-Black society while at the same time, while at the same time rendering his human characters and their emotions in a simple, straightforward, and immensely accessible fashion. Reading the complexity behind the surface simplicity of his works is at once enjoyable and edifying.

Written in the first half of the 20th century, “Let America Be America” is a poem that documents and responds to the oppressed state of the United States, in both the past and present. The poem is a plea for a return to the original principles of freedom that our country has seemingly forgotten. Additionally, the speaker sees America as the broken home to oppressed people who have lost sight of the ultimate goal of freedom and happiness. Although America is often perceived as the “land of the free,” Langston Hughes’s poem contradicts this ideology by not only painting a vivid picture of oppression in America but also by providing a desperate hope for the future.

Langston Hughes is a famous poet known mostly for his contribution to the Harlem Renaissance. He wrote many inspirational poems that are still read and used for educational purposes. Many of his poems were inspired by his life and his story. One of his many poems entitled “Theme for English B” talks about how his teacher instructed him to write a page about himself and it will be true. In a “Theme for English B”, Hughes uses tone, and characterization to display a relationship between race and writing.

“The Harlem Renaissance was a time where the Afro-American came of age; he became self-assertive and racially conscious… he proclaimed himself to be a man and deserving respect. Those Afro-Americans who were part of that time period saw themselves as principals in that moment of transformation from old to new” (Huggins 3). African Americans migrated to the North in great numbers to seek better lives than in the South as the northern economy was booming and industrial jobs were numerous. This movement brought new ideas and talents that shifted the culture forever. Black writers, such as Langston Hughes, used their work to claim a place for themselves and to demand self-respect in society. Poems that Langston Hughes wrote captured the essence of the complexity of a life that mixes joy and frustration of black American life through the incorporation of jazz and blues in order to examine the paradox of being black in mostly white America, the land of the not quite free.

In the fight for equality, people of color often feel isolated and separated from those whose privilege reinforces their oppression. However, there are and always have been white people who see the inequalities that are practiced in society and speak out against them in hopes of reaching equality for all. Langston Hughes used his voice in poetry to express his experience as a black man in the United States during the Civil Rights Movement, and his is a household name. There is no doubt that his words have power. The reader expects to feel his experience and gain empathy and understanding through his poetry. In his poem, “Let America Be America Again,” Hughes presents his experience of American life in a powerful contrast to the experience

Langston Hughes’s “Let America Be America Again” is a poem that could be endlessly applied to where America stands today. This poem illustrates the morals, ideas, and visions set forth by those who found this country and how America has begun straying from those principles. The poem expresses that America is made up of all walks of people and that no man should be crushed by those above him, but rather be given the same opportunity as those above him. Hughes desire to make America great again can be shared in some way or another by most Americans making this poem everlasting. “Let America Be America Again” has the personalization, the language, the connection shared by every American, and the rhyme to allow readers of every race, gender, or religious belief to be brought together as not only people but as Americans.