The students I teach are preparing to recite poetry as an end of semester project. One poet whose work they can recite is Langston Hughes. Some students are doing poetry I know well like “Po’ Boy Blues” or “I Too Sing America,” but others have made choices from deeper in The Collected Works of Langston Hughes.
As a result I was happy to rediscover works like “Negro” with its historical resonances. The fact we just looked at imperialism in the Congo makes the 5th stanza quite apropos.
Black as the night is black,
Black like the depths of my Africa.
I’ve been a slave:
Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean.
I brushed the boots of Washington.
I’ve been a worker:
Under my hand the pyramids arose.
I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.
I’ve been a singer:
All the way from Africa to Georgia
I carried my sorrow songs.
I made ragtime.
I’ve been a victim:
The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo.
They lynch me still in Mississippi.
I am a Negro:
Black as the night is black,
Black like the depths of my Africa.
To some lonesome place.
They said, “Do you believe
In the great white race?”I said, “Mister,
To tell you the truth,
I’d believe in anything
If you’d just turn me loose.”
The white man said, “Boy,
Can it be
You’re a-standin’ there
A-sassin’ me?”
They hit me in the head
And knocked me down.
And then they kicked me
On the ground.
A klansman said, “Nigger,
Look me in the face —
And tell me you believe in
The great white race.”
