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I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how
beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.

Langston Hughes

I, Too

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Original Citation

Hughes, Langston. "I, Too." The Weary Blues. Alfred A. Knopf, 1926, I. 1.

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Hughes, Langston. The Weary Blues. Alfred A. Knopf, 2015, epilogue.

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What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore -
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over -
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes

Harlem

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Hughes, Langston. "Harlem." Montage of a Dream Deferred. Holt, 1951.

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I swear to the Lord
I still can't see
Why Democracy means
Everybody but me.

Langston Hughes

The Black Man Speaks

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Hughes, Langston. "The Black Man Speaks." Jim Crow’s Last Stand. Negro Publications Society of America, 1943, I. 1.

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It's in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Maya Angelou

Phenomenal Woman

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Angelou, Maya. "Phenomenal Woman." And Still I Rise. Random House, 1978, I. 6.

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O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

Langston Hughes

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Hughes, Langston. "Let America Be America Again." Esquire Magazine, July 1936.

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I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Langston Hughes

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Original Citation

Hughes, Langston. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." The Crisis, June 1921, I. 1.

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Current Citation

Hughes, Langston. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." The Weary Blues. Alfred A. Knopf, 2015, I. 1.

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Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Langston Hughes

Dreams

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Original Citation

Hughes, Langston. “Dreams.” The World Tomorrow, May 1923, I. 1.

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Current Citation

Hughes, Langston. “Dreams.” The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Essays on Art, Race, Politics, and World Affairs. Vol. 9, University of Missouri Press, 2001.

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Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

Countee Cullen

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Incident

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Original Citation

Cullen, Countee. "Incident." Color. Harper & Brothers, 1925, I. 5.

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Current Citation

Cullen, Countee. "Incident." Countee Cullen: Collected Poems, edited by Major Jackson. Library of America, 2013, I. 5.

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Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

Maya Angelou

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

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Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Random House, 1969.

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You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Maya Angelou

Still I Rise

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Angelou, Maya. "And Still I Rise." And Still I Rise. Random House, 1978, I. 21.

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It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive.

Maya Angelou

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Angelou, Maya. "Oprah Talks to Maya Angelou." O, The Oprah Magazine, May 2013.

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History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

Maya Angelou

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Angelou, Maya. "On the Pulse of Morning." First Inauguration of President Bill Clinton. 20 Jan. 1993, US Capitol Building, Washington, DC, USA.

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I am a Negro:
Black as the night is black,
Black like the depths of my Africa.

Langston Hughes

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Original Citation

Hughes, Langston. "Negro." The Weary Blues. Alfred A. Knopf, 1926, I. 1.

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Current Citation

Hughes, Langston. "Proem." The Weary Blues. Alfred A. Knopf, 2015, I. 1.

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I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

Langston Hughes

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

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Original Citation

Hughes, Langston. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." The Crisis, June 1921, I. 5.

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Current Citation

Hughes, Langston. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." The Weary Blues. Alfred A. Knopf, 2015, I. 5.

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For poems are like rainbows: they escape you quickly.

Langston Hughes

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Hughes, Langston. "I've Known Rivers." The Big Sea. Alfred A. Knopf, 1940.

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Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.

Langston Hughes

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Original Citation

Hughes, Langston. "Note In Music." Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life, Jan. 1936.

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Current Citation

Hughes, Langston. "Note In Music." The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: The Poems: 1921-1940, edited by Arnold Rampersad. Vol. 1, University of Missouri Press, 2001.

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Once you find the truth you ought to be prepared to stand on the street corner and use all your gifts to right the wrong.

Maya Angelou

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Angelou, Maya. "The West Interview: Maya Angelou." Interviewed by Sal Manna. San Jose Mercury News, 22 June 1986.

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It would be nice to forget history, but we do it at our peril.

Lucille Clifton

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Clifton, Lucille. "The Healing World of Lucille Clifton." Interviewed by Jacqueline Jones Lamon. Mosaic Magazine, 28 Aug. 2012.

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I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, "You know, that's the truth. I wasn't there, and I wasn't a six-foot black girl, but that's the truth."