"I, Too, Sing America" By Langston Hughes

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.

This poem written by Langston Hughes was penned in 1925, 

so it was a bit before the thirties but remains relevant even to this day.

This is one of my favorite poems and it is about civil rights. 

Although the other inhabitants of the house are ashamed of the darker brother 

and send him to eat where he will be unseen by others, 

he still remains optimistic about a better tomorrow. 

Every person, regardless of race or appearance or anything as superficial as that, is America.

 I see the people of the house as representative of this country in that time period and 

company is representative of the self we (being the United States) choose to present to

the outside world.    

(I keep struggling with formatting and my block of text kept ending up as one very long line of text. The only way I found to separate 

text was to do this weird spacing. Sorry!)