I, Too: Difference between revisions
Original publication year was set to 1926, not 1945. |
Original publication year is now set to 1926, not 1945. |
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In the poem, Hughes describes a ubiquitous racial oppression that degrades African Americans at the time. He writes from the perspective of an inferior servant to a domineering white family that shoos him away to the kitchen whenever company arrives. |
In the poem, Hughes describes a ubiquitous racial oppression that degrades African Americans at the time. He writes from the perspective of an inferior servant to a domineering white family that shoos him away to the kitchen whenever company arrives. |
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==References== |
==References== |
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Revision as of 18:36, 13 April 2017
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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.
I, Too first published in 1926, and published in "The First Collection of Poems of Langston Hughes", demonstrates a yearning for equality through perseverance while disproving the idea that patriotism is limited by race. Langston Hughes, in writing this poem and many others, helped define the Harlem Renaissance, a period in the early 1920s and 30s of newfound cultural identity for blacks in America who had discovered the power of literature, art, music, and poetry as a means of personal and collective expression in the scope of civil rights.[1]
In the poem, Hughes describes a ubiquitous racial oppression that degrades African Americans at the time. He writes from the perspective of an inferior servant to a domineering white family that shoos him away to the kitchen whenever company arrives.
References
- ^ History.com Staff. "Harlem Renaissance". History. A + E Networks. Retrieved 6 March 2016.