In every brid stone, in every furrow turned
Thats made America the land it has bee.
O, Im the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For Im the one who left dark Irelands shore,
And Polands plain, and Englands grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africas strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down wherike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams weve dreamed
And all the songs weve sung
And all the hopes weve held
And all the flags weve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream thats almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has bee--
A must be--the land where every man is free.
The land thats mihe poor mans, Indians, Negros, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring baighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the peoples lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
Ameriever was Amerie,
A I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rad ruin of angster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mihe plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
Langston Hughes