Langston Hughes

Here On The Edge Of Hell, Stands Harlem

The U.S. celebrates February as Black History Month and one of the prominent prospects of African-American history is Jazz Poetry; poetry that mirrors jazz-like rhythm or feels of improvisation, i.e. the jazz milieu. Jazz poetry was initially conceived in the 1920s as a voice of acceptance, racial pride and expression of individualism. The 1950s oversaw the focus shift towards spontaneity,[Read More...]

July 4th and Its Contradictions

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
– Langston Hughes, “Let America Be America Again,” written in 1935