Langston Hughes, I, Too (1925)
From Angl-Am
Text
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.
Critical Edition
Langston Hughes. "I, Too [1925]." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Vol. D. Fifth Edition. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 1525.
Further Reading
- Davidas, Lionel. "'I, Too, Sing America': Jazz and Blues Techniques and Effects in Some of Langston Hughes's Selected Poems." Dialectical Anthropology, 26:3-4 (2001), pp. 267-72.
