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In this picture, standing pump right, is Hughes as fellow member of the Meschrabpam's American Negro Film Group, includes writer Dorothy West (seated right), on board the Europa on June 17, 1932. |
The Negro Mother, a poesy form past times Langston Hughes
Children, I come upwards dorsum today
To tell yous a flush of the long black agency
That I had to climb, that I had to know
In guild that the race mightiness alive together with grow.
Look at my appear upwards -- black every bit the nighttime --
Yet shining similar the Sun alongside love's truthful light.
I am the black daughter who crossed the cherry bounding main
Carrying inwards my trunk the seed of the free.
I am the adult woman who worked inwards the plain
Bringing the cotton fiber together with the corn to yield.
I am the 1 who labored every bit a slave,
Beaten together with mistreated for the run that I gave --
Children sold away from me, I'm hubby sold, too.
No safety, no love, no honour was I due.
Three hundred years inwards the deepest South:
But God topographic point a vocal together with a prayer inwards my mouth.
God topographic point a dream similar steel inwards my soul.
Now, through my children, I'm reaching the goal.
Now, through my children, immature together with free,
I realized the approbation human activity to me.
I couldn't read then. I couldn't write.
I had nothing, dorsum in that place inwards the night.
Sometimes, the valley was filled alongside tears,
But I kept trudging on through the lonely years.
Sometimes, the route was hot alongside the sun,
But I had to proceed on till my run was done:
I had to proceed on! No stopping for me --
I was the seed of the coming Free.
I nourished the dream that cypher could smother
Deep inwards my thorax -- the Negro mother.
I had solely hope together with thence , merely immediately through you,
Dark ones of today, my dreams must come upwards true:
All yous black children inwards the Blue Planet out there,
Remember my sweat, my pain, my despair.
Remember my years, heavy alongside sorrow --
And brand of those years a torch for tomorrow.
Make of my top a route to the calorie-free
Out of the darkness, the ignorance, the night.
Lift high my banner out of the dust.
Stand similar complimentary men supporting my trust.
Believe inwards the right, permit none force yous back.
Remember the whip together with the slaver's track.
Remember how the potent inwards care together with strife
Still bar yous the way, together with deny yous life --
But march ever forward, breaking downwardly bars.
Look ever upward at the Sun together with the stars.
Oh, my black children, may my dreams together with my prayers
Impel yous forever upwards the swell stairs --
For I volition last alongside yous till no white blood brother
Dares proceed downwardly the children of the Negro Mother.
DEMOCRACY
Democracy volition non come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise together with fear.
I create got every bit much right
As the other beau has
To stand
On my 2 feet
And ain the land.
I tire thence of hearing people say,
Let things accept their course.
Tomorrow is roughly other day.
I produce non require my freedom
When I'm dead.
I cannot alive on tomorrow's
bread.
Freedom
Is a potent seed
Planted
In a swell need.
I alive here, too.
I desire freedom
Just every bit you.
- Langston Hughes
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