Let America Be America Be America Again by Langston Hughes

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1 Let America Be America Be America Again by Langston Hughes Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free. (America never was America to me.) Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above. (It never was America to me.) O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe. (There s never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this homeland of the free. ) Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars? I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery s scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay!

2 Of owning everything for one s own greed! I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years. Yet I m the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That s made America the land it has become. O, I m the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home For I m the one who left dark Ireland s shore, And Poland s plain, and England s grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa s strand I came To build a homeland of the free. The free? Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay? For all the dreams we ve dreamed And all the songs we ve sung And all the hopes we ve held And all the flags we ve hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay Except the dream that s almost dead today. O, let America be America again The land that never has been yet And yet must be the land where every man is free.

3 The land that s mine the poor man s, Indian s, Negro s, ME Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again. Sure, call me any ugly name you choose The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people s lives, We must take back our land again, America! O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath America will be! Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain All, all the stretch of these great green states And make America again!

4 Waking Up From the American Dream Revs. Emily and Marcus Hartlief 7/5/15 Emily/Marcus alternate: Lemonade stands, 25 cents a cup Fireworks at the baseball game All-you-can-eat Lunch Buffets Trampolines, jumping in the backyard Rocky Mountains, shining seas, a mighty flowing Mississippi river Buy two, get one free! Soccer moms driving mini-vans full of kids Johnny Appleseed, the red delicious Red white and blue, old glory blowing in the wind The Starbucks Venti Mocha Frappuccino with whip cream or that extra-foamy soy milk decaf cappuccino, just the way you like it scary costumes and candy by the handful on Halloween liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness a Big Mac and Fries, supersized, with a Coke a friendly neighbor to mow your lawn Working 9-5, bringing home the bacon Thank God It s Friday! Free long distance. Unlimited minutes, unlimited texts, unlimited data.

5 (Some charges might apply) Backyard Barbeques A parking lot, with plenty of space And church on Sunday morning. Here we are. Living the American Dream. In many ways our lives come straight out of the American Dream. We met and fell in love in graduate school. We got engaged. We bought a house, with help from our parents. We have great jobs, working in rewarding careers in the field of our choosing. We each have our own hand-me-down car, which we drive everywhere. We are expecting a baby, and I m sure at least one of us will serve a term on the PTA. Marcus: In so many ways, the American Dream is a beautiful place to live. The perfect sized house in a safe neighborhood, complete with picket-fence, 2.5 children, and the smell of apple pie wafting from the kitchen. When viewed from a distance, it s a sight to envy. A recent Gallup survey found that of the 640 million people in the world who would like to immigrate to another country, nearly one quarter would like to immigrate to the United States. The next most desirable country had 7%. But the truth is, up close, the façade is cracking. The paint is peeling on the American Dream in ways we are all finding harder to deny. We are more overweight, more

6 depressed, more in debt, more tired, more addicted, more overworked than people have ever been. At the same time that technology has made so many tasks simpler or even unnecessary, we have continued to work harder and harder. Despite all the advances, people in our culture today work longer hours than previous generations. Emily: My dad learned early to strive for the picket fence American Dream. He watched my grandfather, a child during the 1930s depression dedicate 40 years of his life to the company he worked for, Kodak. My dad thought that working hard was the way to have economic security, social status, and a loving family. He worked such long hours when I was growing up that family dinners were a rarity. I remember trying to explain to my Dad, as a young child, that I didn t care if we had so many presents at Christmas, that I just wanted him around more often. Working hard cost my Dad precious time with me as a child. He is comfortable with his decisions, and yet I find myself striving for a life with more balance. Many in my generation feel similarly, unwilling to prioritize work above everything else and struggling to find a way to support ourselves and not compromise our well being. Marcus: I ve mentioned to you before that my grandfather was gay and in the closet his entire life. My mom says he couldn t have imagined this world we live in today, a Supreme Court deciding to legalize marriage equality across our country. He was married, with four kids, and while he frequented gay bars and had intimate friendships with colleagues, he maintained the veneer of an all-american dad his whole life. Presbyterian minister, preaching professor with a PhD, driving around wealthy California suburbs in his seafoam green convertible. But because he couldn t reconcile his sexuality with the American Dream, he compartmentalized his life and passed on a legacy of depression to my lesbian mom. My moms in turn, found a way to be themselves and live the American Dream. They became solidly middle class, earning a six-figure combined income; members of what one of my mentors jokingly refers to as the lesbi-gay-ristocracy. And yet, I still remember the nightly arguments about money, the kinds of fights that are common in homes of every income level, but often not spoken of closeted, like my grandfather, to fit into the American dream. Emily/Marcus alternate: Do you know anyone who s worked so hard to achieve that they ve lost the opportunity to live their dreams? Would you just raise your hand for a moment if you do?

7 Raise your hand if you know someone who s tried to change themselves to fit into the American dream. Raise your hand if you know someone who has argued about money with someone close to them. Raise your hand if you know someone who s worried about health insurance. Raise your hand if you know someone who has struggled with loneliness, unemployment, debt, eating disorders, addiction, depression. Marcus: For all the dreams we ve dreamed And all the songs we ve sung And all the hopes we ve held And all the flags we ve hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay Except the dream that s almost dead today. The paint is peeling on the American Dream. We know, all of us, intimately, that the American Dream is really no dream after all. If the American Dream is about getting yours and forgetting others, it s no dream at all. If the American Dream is about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and paying as little in taxes as you can get away with, it s no dream at all. If the American Dream is about building walls along our borders and bombing the rest of the world to pieces, it s no dream at all. And yet, there is another American Dream. O, let America be America again The land that never has been yet And yet must be.

8 Langston Hughes may not have been able to imagine a black president. He may not have been able to imagine our government establishing a system to give health care to all. Yet his words still ring true, 80 years after he wrote that prophetic poem in Because he certainly could have imagined a white man stepping into a black church and killing nine people in cold blood. He certainly could have imagined black churches burning throughout the South while the confederate flag still waves. He certainly could have imagined suburban white schools flourishing while over 90% of young black men in the city drop out before graduating high school. He could have imagined thousands still living on reservations, ancient tribes still fighting to be recognized. He could have imagined a world where Black Lives Matter was still controversial. He could certainly have imagined the workers on dairy farms, many who are undocumented immigrants, being paid illegally and immorally low wages to produce the iconic American ice cream cone. Emily: And of course we Americans aren t the only ones suffering from the American Dream. We know that around the world, not everyone is jumping on trampolines, not everyone is having a Venti Frappuccino with whipped cream. We are more and more aware that we live, that we have always lived, in an interconnected web, a planet that requires all of us to pay attention. In fact, many of us know the cost of our lifestyle very well. Public radio tells us about the inhumane mines in Africa that power our cell phones. We see on the news the alarming statistics that more military service members commit suicide than are killed in combat today. Our children, wide-eyed, remind us to recycle, to cut up plastic rings to save the sea turtles. As a people striving for a moral life, many of us have moments of feeling desperate and hopeless about the situation, and our ability to change things. It seems as though everyone who agrees with us is already shopping at the co-op, and everyone who doesn t agree with us isn t paying attention. And the people in charge are certainly not listening, either. This might even lead us to despise America. To wish we could be one of those happy persons living in Northern Europe with universal health care, or somewhere on a Caribbean island, where we imagine life to be simpler.

9 Marcus: Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one s own greed! It is no easy moral calling to be born in this place, at this time. For some of us, it is easy to despise America. But the spiritual task, the religious task, the moral task is not easy. Our spiritual task is not to despise America. And our spiritual task is to not turn away from how bad things are. It is to not blame the soulless, greedy corporations, no matter how soulless and greedy they get. Our task as Unitarian Universalists is to wake up from the American Dream and see ourselves and our country clearly. We must put down the rosey red, white and blue patriot s glasses, we must brush off the glitter of hollywood, and perhaps most challenging for us Unitarian Universalists, we must also lay down the protection of our ivory tower critiques and intellectual elitism my own secret heart s knowing that I m not a real American. We must see ourselves clearly, implicated both in the horror and the beauty that is America. And honestly, for those of us who are white, this task is especially challenging. We have been trained from an early age to be blind the racism that still permeates our culture and privileges the color of our skin. Trained from an early age to see ourselves as good, as pure, as innocent. And when we do wake up and see the racism that surrounds and that we often unconsciously participate in, we find ourselves feeling helpless, or defensive, or ashamed all understandable, but all getting in the way of the work of healing that we are called to be a part of. Emily: In college, my car was covered with bumper stickers. I have a lot to say to the world. A favorite read We don t want a bigger piece of the pie. We want a different pie. These are words of Native American activist and writer Winona LaDuke. As a member of the Anishaabe tribe, her people know intimately the impact of the American Dream of people looking for more, people feeling entitled to take more and more. I want a different pie. I really do. I don t want a bigger piece of American pie. When I imagine an America for my children, for my grandchildren, for my great-grandchildren, I do hope they have safe neighborhoods and schools, a place for lemonade stands and

10 trampolines. As I pray for this for all children. A few years ago, at a large protest against the begining of the (second) Iraq war, I saw a mother holding a child in one hand, and in the other hand, a sign that read Their children are as holy as mine. This is the different pie we need. Nurturing an ethic of their children are as holy as mine is what I believe to be the moral responsibility our time. Their lives matter as much as mine. The more we recognize their children are as holy as ours, the more we are able to wake up from our American Dream, and participate in an interdependent global future. We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain All, all the stretch of these great green states And make America again! Marcus: One of the things we must recognize if we are to wake up to this world community, is that our way is not the way. Globalization true globalization of our hearts, of our consciousness, of our longing for life, perhaps even of our governance and economies, could be a wonderful thing. But globalization as we have known it, would be better named Americanization. We have pushed the American Dream on the rest of the world, with nightmarish results. Our American Dream has become a Planetary Nightmare. We need to find a way to be American without building fences. We need to find a way to be American without legalizing racial profiling, allowing for police to pull people over because of their skin color. We need to find a way to be American without foreclosing on homes while people sleep under bridges. Emily: And most importantly, we need to find a way to join the global community. We need to a role that is not as the biggest gun-carriers of the world. We need to meet our neighbors as a people fishing from the same oceans, sharing the same wells of drinking water. We need to find what is beautiful and good about our culture, and we must lose our taste for conquest. For all of us, around the planet, to have a beautiful future we need a system that does not separate and divide people. We need to find path towards collective well-being.

11 Marcus: I didn t learn the pledge of allegiance as a kid. Go figure, it wasn t a part of the culture in Berkeley, California. So when my fifth grade teacher, newly arrived to the school, decided to institute saying the pledge as a ritual at the beginning of each day, it wasn t just because of principle that I kept my mouth shut while the few kids who did know it recited it. Personally, I ve never been able to say that pledge without a bitter taste in my mouth. But every year around this time there s a facebook meme that goes around. A pledge of allegiance I could say every day. It goes like this: I pledge allegiance to the Earth, and all the life which it supports, One Planet, in our care, irreplaceable, with sustenance and respect for all. Marcus/Emily alternate: So what does our global imagination call us toward? Solar panels on every rooftop. Honesty, reconciliation and forgiveness as foreign policy Teenagers from every country having a chance to travel and see the world. Laughter and tears in the classroom, in the office, in the home. Salmon running wild. Every child raised bilingual. Universal healthcare for every person on the planet. Elders whose stories nurture and inspire the next generation. Honored families of every kind. Empowered local economies, fair and equitable trade. Community bicycles, skateboards and scooters! Indigenous communities supported to remain intact, languages kept alive, cultures shared without taking and selling.

12 People reaching across borders, linking arms to build and nurture our common humanity. A nation filled with pride at our wondrous achievements and vital leadership, and humble with the sincere recognition that we are all in this together. O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath America will be! May it be so, Amen.

Let America Be America Again

Let America Be America Again Researching Images of America ACTIVITY 1.8 Learning Targets Analyze the use of imagery in a poem to see how it refers to the experience of being an American. Explain how a particular iconic American image