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Kristine Toms

Professor Gramse

Writing A211

4 May 2023

The Dream: A Historical Criticism Reading of “Let America Be America Again”

The moving poem “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes (1901-1967)

reveals how the American dream wasn’t a reality for the disadvantaged people of America.

Through historical criticism and researching the background of the author and the time period the

poem was written, we get a better understanding of the poem to learn it’s influenced by the

devastating effects of the Great Depression and how the author’s other personal struggles and

history help him to portray the significant class and social inequalities of the time.

Hughes wrote the poem in 1935 during The Great Depression, which is strongly reflected

in his writing. Hunger was widespread in the United States and is described in the poem, “I am

the people, humble, hungry, mean- / Hungry yet today despite the dream.” President Franklin D.

Roosevelt started The New Deal reforms and relief programs in 1933 (History.com Editors).

This relief is mentioned in the poem, “Who said the free? Not me? / Surely not me? The millions

on relief today?” The Second New Deal that came later included the National Labor Relations

Act of 1935 to give people the right to organize and strike (History.com Editors). This may have

been after he wrote the poem, because he mentions labor issues with, “The millions shot down

when we strike?” He also mentions all the people who lost their money during this time with the

stock market crash of 1929 and the thousands of banks that closed with, “The millions who have

nothing for our pay?” Farmers and miners were especially affected during this time. Many

farmers lost their farms, and Congress established the Agricultural Adjustment Act to pay them
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and help boost agricultural prices (History.com Editors). Significant numbers of miners were laid

off with many starting bootleg mining efforts to make money to survive (Your Land). Hughes

mentions both in his poem, “grab the land! / Of grab the gold! […] / Of work the men! Of take

the pay! […] / We, the people, must redeem / The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.”

Hughes’ personal background greatly affected his writing. He has a mixed heritage

descending from African American slaves and slave owners from Kentucky (Langston Hughes

1901-1967). His father left his family moving to Mexico when Hughes was very young escaping

the racial prejudices in the United States, so he grew up primarily in Kansas raised by his

maternal grandmother while his single mother, who was a schoolteacher, traveled to find work

(Mae). However, he ended up living in many cities. He lived in six cities before he was twelve

years old, and he traveled internationally to a great number of places in his lifetime like,

“Mexico, West Africa, the Azores, the Canary Islands, Holland, France, and Italy” (Langston

Hughes). He also worked in numerous types of jobs throughout his life from “a truck farmer,

cook, waiter, […] sailor, and doorman” before settling in Harlem (Langston Hughes). He

attended Columbia University in 1921, but he only stayed a year due to the racial prejudices he

experienced (Mae). He also became a writer for the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis, in 1921,

which is where most of his poems are published (Singh). In 1933, he traveled to the Soviet

Union to make a film about racial segregation in America (Belano). And in 1935, the year the

poem was written, there were the Harlem Race Riots caused by the perception of police brutality

on a black teen (Wang).

These personal experiences help Hughes to identify with the struggling American in the

poem, which he is known for. He considered his life’s work as a way “to explain and illuminate

the Negro condition in America […] and obliquely that of all humankind” (Hurst). He is the
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voice for different races and the lower class in the poem like, “I am the poor white fooled and

pushed apart, / I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars. / I am the red man driven from the land, /

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek – / […] I am the young man, full of strength and

hope,” and “I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.” He talks about their lack of freedom and

equality by saying, “(There’s never been equality for me, / Nor freedom in this ‘homeland of the

free’).” He highlights the class inequalities in America with lines like, “Of profit, power, gain,

[…] / Of owning everything for one’s own greed!” and “From those who live like leeches on the

people’s lives.” He then ends with a call for action leaving the reader with hope “We must take

back our land again, / America!”

Hughes is a powerful writer who is considered to be the father of the Harlem Renaissance

(Mae), which was a period of great growth for black arts and literature that was centered in

Harlem. He also became “the first black American to earn his living solely from his writing and

public lectures” (Langston Hughes), and in 2002 his image was used as one of the Black

Heritage series United States postal commemorative stamps (Hurst). Even though the poem is

written thirty years before the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s, his vast

experiences and struggles as an African American man in the time of The Great Depression

helped him highlight the substantial class and social inequalities of the time.
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Works Cited

Belano, Robert. “Langston Hughes Reflects on the Promise of The Soviet Union.” Left Voice,

Feb 2020, https://www.leftvoice.org/langston-hughes-reflects-on-the-promise-of-the-

soviet-union/

History.com Editors. “New Deal.” History, Jan 2023, https://www.history.com/topics/great-

depression/new-deal

Hughes, Langston. “Let America Be America Again.” Poetry Foundation,

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147907/let-america-be-america-again.

Accessed 26 Feb 2023.

Hurst, Rodney. “Black Heritage Stamp Series: Langston Hughes.” University of North Florida,

Feb 2002,

https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1038&context=hurst_stamps

“Langston Hughes.” Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/langston-

hughes. Accessed 26 Feb 2023.

“Langston Hughes (1901-1967).” National Museum of African American History & Culture,

Smithsonian. https://nmaahc.si.edu/langston-hughes. Accessed 26 Feb 2023.

Mae, Tara. “Langston Hughes: Son of America, Father of a Renaissance.” Three Village

Historical Society, Jun 2020, https://www.tvhs.org/post/langston-hughes-son-of-america-

father-of-a-renaissance

Singh, Amardeep. “Poems in ‘The Crisis,’ 1910-1926.” African American Poetry (1870-1926): A

Digital Anthology, Aug 2022, https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-

anthology/poems-in-the-crisis-1910-1926-path
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Wang, Tabitha. “Harlem Race Riot (1935).” BlackPast.org, Jun 2008,

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/events-african-american-

history/harlem-riot-1935/

“Your Land is My Land: A Look at Bootleg Coal Mining During the Depression.”

ExplorePAhistory, https://explorepahistory.com/viewLesson.php?id=1-D-57