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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his...
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FURTHER READING
Politics and Patriotism
Howl, Parts I & II
by Allen Ginsberg
America
by Robert Creeley
America
by Claude McKay
America
by James Monroe Whitfield
American History
by Michael S. Harper
American Names
by Stephen Vincent Benét
Bomb Crater Sky
by Lam Thi My Da
Children of Our Era
by Wislawa Szymborska
Dear George Bush
by Kristin Prevallet
Delicate Cluster
by Walt Whitman
Election Year
by Donald Revell
Exquisite Candidate
by Denise Duhamel
Exquisite Politics
by Denise Duhamel
Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind
by Carl Sandburg
Identity Crisis
by F. D. Reeve
In a Country
by Larry Levis
Let America Be America Again
by Langston Hughes
On the Day of Nixon's Funeral
by Ira Sadoff
Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds
by Eleanor Lerman
Patriotics
by David Baker
Praise Song for the Day
by Elizabeth Alexander
Thanksgiving Letter from Harry
by Carl Dennis
To Roosevelt
by Rubén Darío
Related Prose
Masters and Master Works: On Black Male Poetics
by Afaa M. Weaver
Related Pages
Poets.org Guide to Langston Hughes
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I, Too, Sing America  
by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides, 
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.



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From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Knopf and Vintage Books. Copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.
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