I Too Sing America Analysis

Since the beginning of American history, African Americans have had to deal with outright mistreatment and inferiority within society. During slavery, African Americans were completely stripped of their basic civil rights and liberties; they were not considered to be human. During the Civil Rights Movement, although African Americans had gained their freedom nearly a century ago, they still were not treated with dignity and respect, forced to advocate for the rights given to them as citizens of the United States. Because of the racism African Americans experienced, leaders such as David Walker and Martin Luther King organized efforts to help African Americans gain more respect and inclusion in American society. Both leaders had significant

The poem I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman was written before the Emancipation Proclamation. During this time it was common practice to view slaves, or those with colored skin, as property not as people, or citizens. Almost 100 years after I Hear America Singing was written, during the Harlem Renaissance, a black poet, named Langston Hughes wrote a poem in response to the 'missing part' of Whitman's poem. This new poem that Hughes wrote is called I Too, when it was written it sparked a very heated debate. This poem was, most believe, made in response, to add on to Whitmans poem Hughes uderlyed that Whitman had forgotten the people of color.

Langston Hughes poem Let America Be America Again explains his dream for the new America. Hughes explains in his poem how American portrayed its self as being a free country with endless possibilities, but the poet exposes that America is not the dream for African Americans or lower-class citizens. In the poem Hughes begins with “let America be America again”; however, he also adds America was never America to me. America portrayed its self as the land of the free; however, many Blacks did not feel free due to slavery and injustice and those who fought for this dream was cast aside. The poet also adds, let it be that great strong land of love.

From 1954-1968, the majority of Americans worked together to achieve their goal of putting an end to legal laws of discrimination and racial segregation in the United States through the Civil Rights Movement. In the poem, “Harlem” by Langston Hughes, the letter “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr., and the article “A Letter To My Son” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, all demonstrate the struggles and unjust lives that African Americans went through back in the days till today. In Hughes’s poem, the readers are being demonstrated that the American Dream is inaccessible for African Americans because of the racial segregation and the usual poverty that most black people lived in. In King Jr.’s letter, he expresses the way laws were constructed to serve injustice to African Americans. In Coates’s letter to his son, he wrote about the racial injustices that African Americans lived through from now and back then.

The same year slavery was abolished, The Black Codes were created. These laws oppressed black people and restricted their freedom. Because of the poor treating of African Americans and the Black Codes, The Reconstruction period was a failure. Some people were very unhappy when slavery was abolished. Southerners were frustrated that their property would be taken from them and turned into citizens.

Hughes openly declared Walt Whitman as one of his favorite authors, so naturally he incorporated that into his writing. In “I, Too” he makes the connection in the first line with “I, Too, Sing America”. This is a direct reference to Walt Whitman’s poem “I Hear America Singing”. Whitman’s poem describes what America looks like by the way that Americans works, and this ultimately makes America unlike anywhere else. The descriptions of the different people forces a sense of pride into those who read the words, but when one reads “I, too” the emotion grows.

Over the ages racism has been a constant matter in the United States of America, notably during Reconstruction. For the time being, this specific stage had a considerable impact on the country because it was known as the effort to give African Americans a voice, as well as reunify the nation after the tragic civil war. Although laws and compromises were put in place to pave a pathway to a better life for freedmen, they were ineffective. The Ku Klux Klan became known and African Americans lived in a constant state of fear, praying to escape from violence and murder. More than that, there were consecutive failures involved with reconstruction, including the limited necessities freedmen and women were supplied with and the black codes that were

The song “Southern Man” is about a man with a bunch of black slaves and how the black slaves do not use violence, but instead hold back their frustration and do not go to violence. Just writing a song like this needs a man to be aware of his surroundings and think about what problems are going on. He also needs to be extremely confident in his song since it is attacking racism, a topic that is controversy. He played this song during his 1973 tour to promote anti-violence and anti-racism. Around this time, the native Americans in the US were in a very bad condition, they were being mistreated and thrown around like dirt.

“We are no longer slaves, but we sure aren’t free!” (Pat’s Justice) This line was by an African-American poet I heard speak about racial inequality and injustice he had faced growing up in an unprivileged neighborhood. Racism and discrimination remains to try to pierce through the skin of many throughout the globe. Although cultural diversity breeds through our country, generations of immigrants and their children still may feel unwanted in the United States while they are citizens here. People to this day have faced ignorance because of their pigmentation of their skin and ethnical backgrounds. Born and raised in California, I dealt with social issues from peers because of the color of my skin and religious beliefs.

In addition to this, the first two lines of the stanza rhyme. Blues music was created and first sung by the African slaves who would sing to convey their hardship and isolation from others. Blues music to the African slaves was a strategy to explain their feelings and help them cope with their suffering. Auden was trying to draw similarities to the Jewish refugees and the injustices of the Africans slaves. This links to refugees as they have to run away from their fears constantly and the Jews were homeless and isolated from other people due to religious

My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of the earth. (Abraham Lincoln) In the poem "Let America Be America Again," Langston Hughes paints an affecting and diverse stanza, displaying peaceful passages to angry outbursts. His resonance seems confessional, as he is speaking about his own exposure and communicating for all the unheard Americans. Hughes addresses how America considers to be, has shifted to them to think, and could pursue to be again. In the beginning of the poem, Langston Hughes converses about what the American Dream is to him and who believed it.