Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, and newspaper columnist.

John Kerry campaign slogan

Presidential candidate John Kerry controversially selected the title of a 1938 poem by Hughes, "Let America be America again" as the slogan for his 2004 Presidential campaign, even though the poem itself, as originally written, was not pro-United States or its policy. The poem contrasts American idealism with the reality for black people at that time::

Related Topics:
John Kerry - 1938 - Let America be America again - 2004 Presidential campaign - United States

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::Let America be America again.

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::Let it be the dream it used to be.

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::Let it be the pioneer on the plain

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::Seeking a home where he himself is free.

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::(America never was America to me.)

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During a speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Kerry said, quoting part of a later stanza of the poem:

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"Langston Hughes was a poet, a black man and a poor man. And he wrote in the 1930s powerful words that apply to all of us today. He said 'Let America be America again. Let it be the dream that it used to be for those whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, for those whose hand at the foundry' - something Pittsburgh knows about - 'for those whose plough in the rain must bring back our mighty dream again.' He was great."

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