Langston Hughes was a famous 20th century African American poet, and was one of the main known figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Langston Hughes used his poems to express African American culture and his hope for equality and racial justice in America. Throughout school in history classes I actually learned a lot about Langston Hughes, I even had to memorize some of his poems and be able to recite them in middle school. So I was happy to continue reading and learning about Langston Hughes and his poems.
One of his poems that really caught my attention was “Let America Be America Again” in this poem Langston Hughes really shows the disparities in American prosperity. Langston Hughes basically challenges America to live up to what the founders wanted America to look like. He believes to be able to do that America has to rebuild itself instead of just fixing what is already there, because the system is broken. Hughes shows the readers how African Americans struggle immensely because of racial inequality in America, he basically states in the land of the free African Americans still aren’t free. Due to how oppressive the system is for African Americans in America.
The poem “Let America be America Again” also stood out to me due to its strong messages about racial inequality. I felt like the other poems were more symbolic and needed interpretation to find the meaning while “Let America be American Again” was much more upfront about its messages.
I also was taken away by the language used in “Let America Be America Again.” I found that this poem was more direct to the reader as that was more powerful for me. The line “America never was America to me” really speaks loudly about the racial inequality that was occurring at the time and, like you said, America needed to rebuild itself to create the dream that it once was.
I totally agree with Elina, I think that “Let America Be America Again” was much more straightforward and direct to the message than the other poems which need to be interpreted more in order to be able to understand their meaning. I think that the line: “We must take back our land again, America!” talks about the racial inequality and the unfair oppressive system Morgan talked about in the blogpost.