I, Too

I, Too, Sing America

 
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, Sing America (1945), published in "The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes", aims to demonstrate a yearning for equality through unwavering perseverance, all while disproving the anomaly 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. Blacks required equality to truly wane ever increasing social suffering. In the poem, Hughes describes a ubiquitous racial oppression that degrades African Americans at the time, and he writes from the perspective of an inferior servant to a domineering white family that shoos him away to the kitchen whenever company arrives. Hughes is widely known for his sense of hope and change for the future. He even refers to himself as a “brother” of the family in this poem, suggesting that race and patriotism are mutually exclusive—anyone can exude American pride and spark a sociopolitical revolution.