I remember learning about Langston Hughes at some point, maybe in high school. I am sure we read one (I am sure it was no more than one) of his poems, and talked about him in the context of the Harlem Renaissance. I’m also fairly certain that whichever poem we read was not “Let America Be America Again.”

Hughes wrote the piece in 1935. I didn’t learn it in 1995, ’96, ’97, or ’98. I came across it last night on a poetry playlist on Spotify. Amazing how prescient, especially considering the ironic foreshadowing of the prime political slogan and dog whistle of the last decade. An excerpt, lest you think Hughes was only concerned with things going on in Harlem:

“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.”

Read the full poem here: Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes