The Full Text of “I, Too”
1I, too, sing America.
2I am the darker brother.
3They send me to eat in the kitchen
4When company comes,
5But I laugh,
6And eat well,
7And grow strong.
8Tomorrow,
9I’ll be at the table
10When company comes.
11Nobody’ll dare
12Say to me,
13“Eat in the kitchen,”
14Then.
15Besides,
16They’ll see how beautiful I am
17And be ashamed—
18I, too, am America.
The Full Text of “I, Too”
1I, too, sing America.
2I am the darker brother.
3They send me to eat in the kitchen
4When company comes,
5But I laugh,
6And eat well,
7And grow strong.
8Tomorrow,
9I’ll be at the table
10When company comes.
11Nobody’ll dare
12Say to me,
13“Eat in the kitchen,”
14Then.
15Besides,
16They’ll see how beautiful I am
17And be ashamed—
18I, too, am America.
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“I, Too” Introduction
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“I, Too” is a poem by Langston Hughes. First published in 1926, during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, the poem portrays American racism as experienced by a black man. In the poem, white people deny the speaker a literal and metaphorical seat at the table. However, the speaker asserts that he is just as much as part of America as are white people, and that soon the rest of the country will be forced to acknowledge the beauty and strength of black people.
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“I, Too” Summary
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I also am part of America.
I am a black member of the American family. They tell me I have to eat alone in the kitchen when they have people over for dinner. But I laugh at their hypocrisy, and eat heartily in order to grow stronger.
In the future, I will sit at the table when they have people over for dinner. No one will dare to tell me that I have to eat alone in the kitchen then.
And anyway, they’ll see that I’m beautiful then and they’ll feel ashamed of themselves.
I also am American.
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“I, Too” Themes
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Racism and American Identity
“I, Too” is a cry of protest against American racism. Its speaker, a black man, laments the way that he is excluded from American society—even though he is a key part of it. But, the speaker argues, black people have persevered—and will persevere—through the injustices of racism and segregation by developing a vibrant, beautiful, and independent cultural tradition, a cultural tradition so powerful that it will eventually compel white society to recognize black contributions to American life and history.
Throughout the poem, the speaker insists that he is authentically American and that his community has made important contributions to American life. The speaker begins by announcing, “I, too, sing America.” This is an allusion to a poem by Walt Whitman, “I Hear America Singing.” In that poem, Whitman describes America as a song, which emerges from a diverse chorus of workers, farmers and industrial labors, women and men.
However, Whitman notably does not include black people in his vision of American life. Even though the poem was written in 1855, just five years before the Civil War started, he doesn’t mention slavery at all. The speaker objects to Whitman’s poem, insisting that black people contribute to the American “song”: in other words, that black culture and black labor have been key to creating America.
The poem argues that these contributions have been consciously erased by white people. In the poem’s second stanza, the speaker notes that he is forced to “eat in the kitchen / when company comes.” This is an extended metaphor for segregation. It describes the way that white people treat black people and black contributions to American culture.
The speaker also suggests that white and black communities are quite intimate with each other. The speaker is “the darker brother”—in other words, he’s part of the same family—the American family—as the white people who force him to eat in the kitchen. Despite this intimacy, however, the white members of this metaphorical family force him out of view when other people are around, when they have “company.” In other words, the extended metaphor highlights the hypocrisy of white communities: even though white and black people are part of the same American family, white people exclude, neglect, and ignore black contributions to American history and culture.
Despite being treated like a second-class citizen, the speaker responds to injustice by declaring that he will “laugh,” “eat well,” and “grow strong.” In other words, black people respond to racism and segregation by developing vibrant and independent cultural traditions. These traditions give them strength so that, in the future, white people will no longer be able to ignore their contributions to American culture—“they’ll see how beautiful I am,” the speaker announces in line 16. Further, as a result of this strength and beauty, white people will no longer be able to exclude the “darker brother” from the table. Segregation itself will break down.
The poem thus argues that racism involves a willful refusal to acknowledge that black people as just as American as anyone else. And it argues that this refusal will eventually cause the collapse of racism. The poem encourages black people to persevere, to deepen and extend their contributions to American life and culture until those contributions are impossible to ignore.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “I, Too”
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Line 1
I, too, sing America.
The first line of “I, Too” establishes the poem’s theme and hints at its form. The poem begins with a powerful, direct statement. The speaker insists that he also “sing[s] America.” This statement is an allusion to a poem by Walt Whitman, “I Hear America Singing.” In “I Hear America Singing,” Whitman depicts America as a diverse country, with many different kinds of people doing many different kinds of jobs. However, they are all unified. Whitman uses a metaphor to describe this unity: they sing together, creating a harmonious choir that sings a common song.
Whitman’s depiction of America is idealized—and it neglects many of the real conflicts that divide Americans. For instance, even though it was written in 1855, just five years before the American Civil War, "I Hear America Singing" makes no mention of slavery. Indeed, Whitman does not include black people at all in his account of American life.
The speaker of “I, Too” objects to this exclusion. The opening line of the poem should be seen as a direct response to Whitman. The speaker insists that he is also part of the American song. The reader learns later, in line 2, that the speaker is the “darker brother”—in other words, that he is a black man. So the speaker is saying that black people have contributed and continue to contribute to American history and culture—that their contributions are as important as those made by any of the white figures that appear in Whitman’s poem.
The line is forceful, passionate. The strong, definite end-stop at the end of the line underscores this passion: the speaker does not have any doubts, nor does he leave room for debate or dispute. Further, this line will eventually become a refrain for the poem—it reappears, in a slightly different form, as the poem’s final line. It is a point of certainty and conviction, a fundamental belief that shapes the rest of the poem.
The line is not in meter and it does not participate in a rhyme scheme. It is a line of free verse (and the rest of the poem will continue to be in free verse). Meter and rhyme are European poetic traditions—they emerge from largely white, often racist, cultures. In refusing these devices, the speaker thus strikes out to create a black literary voice, independent of European traditions.
However, his use of free verse also hints at the speaker's entanglement with Whitman: Whitman was one of the first poets to write in free verse. The speaker is using some of Whitman’s poetic innovations even as he quarrels with the limits of Whitman’s poetic vision. The reader should take this as a subtle argument about the scope of American literature: the speaker insists that black voices belong in the American literary canon, that they can use its distinctive devices and resources.
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Lines 2-7
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. -
Lines 8-14
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then. -
Lines 15-18
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.
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“I, Too” Symbols
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Kitchen
The “kitchen” broadly symbolizes the unequal treatment faced by black Americans. In lines 3-4, the speaker notes that he is sent “to eat in the kitchen / When company comes.” On the one hand, this can be taken literally. Black people were often employed as domestic workers for white families—tasked with things like preparing food and caring for children. Despite relying on such workers, white families would push them into the background, refusing to treat them as equal human beings even as they benefited from their labor.
The kitchen is thus a key part of the poem’s extended metaphor. In a poem that describes American racism, the “kitchen” symbolizes one of its most perverse expressions: segregation. Segregation meant the black people and white people had to stay separate, in everything from where they lived to what water fountains they used. Yet white families still relied on black labor—bringing black workers into their homes yet refusing to treat them as equal human beings or even acknowledge their presence socially. Sending the speaker to the kitchen represents white society's hypocritical treatment of him, its desire to benefit from his labor without acknowledging his humanity.
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Company
In "I, too," "company" symbolizes white society. “Company” literally means “guests” or “visitors.” The white members of the American family seem to be ashamed of their “darker brother”: they don’t want to acknowledge their relationship to a black person in front of other people. This suggests that the white members of the family are hypocrites. They only hide the “darker brother” when other people are around.
This symbol is key to the poem because it shows that American racism and segregation are rooted in shame and denial on the part of white people. White people refuse to acknowledge that they are already part of an American family that includes black people; that they already share the same house (metaphorically, within the broader melting pot of American society, and often literally in the sense of black people employed as domestic workers for white families). The poem implies that white people would rather keep up the appearance of superiority rather than acknowledge the equality and beauty of black people.
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Table
In "I, too," the table symbolizes respect, equality, and opportunity. In lines 8-9, the speaker makes a prediction about the future. Even though now he gets sent to the “kitchen / When company comes,” some day in the future he'll "be at the table.” By the time the reader gets to this point in the poem, there is already a rich set of associations to draw on: the kitchen, for instance, represents segregation, and the whole situation is an extended metaphor for American racism.
The “table” adds another important layer to this extended metaphor. It symbolizes power and participation, the opportunity to engage meaningfully in American democracy—as an equal player, a respected contributor. When the speaker comes to the table “tomorrow,” he will no longer be a second class citizen, but finally recognized as the full member of American society that he is.
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“I, Too” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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End-Stopped Line
Although “I, Too” uses a lot of short, enjambed lines, the speaker also often employs end-stops. Though the two devices do different things, they work together to build the poem's critique of American racism. While the poem’s enjambments create suspense and surprise—raising questions about racism—its end-stops also may convey the speaker's confidence that racism will end.
Take a look at the first line of the poem, for instance:
I, too, sing America.
The line is an allusion to Walt Whitman’s poem “I Hear America Singing.” In that poem, Whitman describes a wide range of people “singing”—and argues that their voices join together to create a unified American song. But he doesn’t include black people in his vision of America. The speaker objects to Whitman’s poem: the speaker believes that black people are a key part of the American song. The end-stop at the end of line 1 conveys the force of the speaker’s conviction, the power of his belief that he, too, is an important part of American history and culture. It suggests that he has no doubts on the issue, and that he will not accept any disagreement.
Something similar happens in the end-stop that appears in line 10, after two short lines:
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.The “table” is a symbol for participating in American life. In other words, the speaker is insisting that a day will come when he is not excluded from American politics, treated as a second class citizen. The end-stop underscores the speaker’s confidence that racism will eventually lose its power. Thus, the poem’s end-stops underscore the speaker’s powerful sense of certainty, his firm belief that racism will not last forever.
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Enjambment
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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Consonance
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Allusion
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Refrain
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Extended Metaphor
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Polysyndeton
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Parallelism
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"I, Too" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Sing
- America
- Darker Brother
- Kitchen
- Company
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Literally, to sing about America. But the speaker is also alluding to Walt Whitman's poem "I Hear America Singing." In that poem, "singing" is a metaphor for participating in the construction of American life. But Whitman's poem doesn't recognize black people's contributions to America—so here the speaker insists that the speaker, as a black man, also contributes to the American song.
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “I, Too”
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Form
“I, Too” is not a formal poem. It doesn’t follow the rules of a fixed form, like the sonnet or the villanelle. And it doesn’t have a set meter or rhyme scheme. Instead, it is written in five stanzas consisting of anywhere from one to seven lines. It is a free verse poem, with the short lines and strong enjambments that free verse poets often employ.
The speaker has a strong reason to refuse poetry’s traditional forms. As one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes was determined to find a literary voice for black suffering, resistance, and resilience. “I, Too” is about the dignity of black life in America. The speaker suggests that black people (and black cultural traditions) are beautiful and worthwhile on their own terms. It makes sense, then, that the speaker of “I, Too” would avoid using devices like meter and rhyme, which are associated with European poetic traditions—and with the predominantly white (and often racist) cultures that produced these poetic traditions. In refusing these European traditions, the speaker seeks to create a way of writing about black culture that is specific to black life, and that isn’t confined by white history.
Interestingly, not all participants in the Harlem Renaissance rejected white, European poetic forms. Rather, form was part of important debates within the Harlem Renaissance about how best to develop a black literary voice. In opposition to Hughes, some poets demonstrated that they were as capable as the giants of English literature when it came to handling difficult forms like the sonnet. Claude McKay does this in poems like “If We Must Die.” So, the form of "I, Too," represents one possible strategy among many for developing a black literary voice.
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Meter
“I, Too” does not have a meter. It is written in free verse. Like many free verse poets, the speaker favors short, heavily enjambed lines. These lines tend to have a lot of variation in their rhythms.
For example, listen to the rhythm of lines 5-7:
But I laugh
and eat well
and grow strong.Each line has three syllables with two stresses apiece. But line 5 puts its stresses on the first and third syllable of the line, while lines 6-7 have an unstressed syllable followed by two stressed syllables. The poem’s rhythm shifts around, expressing the ebb and flow of the speaker’s passion.
Moreover, the length of the poem’s lines also shifts—from nine syllables in line 3 to one in line 14. In its variable rhythms and line lengths, the poem consciously rejects European poetic traditions, which tend to prize stable rhythms and line lengths (such as iambic pentameter)—developing, in their place, an independent African American poetic tradition.
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Rhyme Scheme
“I, Too” does not have a rhyme scheme. In fact, the poem does not rhyme at all. One might understand this resistance to rhyme as a reaction to white, European poetic traditions—which, since the Middle Ages, have put a lot of emphasis on rhyme. In his refusal of rhyme, the speaker is signaling his interest in developing an independent, black tradition.
However, Langston Hughes often wrote poems modeled on the blues—and those poems use a lot of rhyme, just like blues songs do. So it’s not like Hughes is absolutely opposed to rhyme: he recognizes its place in black American traditions, even as he resists the influence of white, European poetry. This poem doesn't draw on those musical traditions, however: it is straightforward, plainspoken. It uses everyday language to express a powerful, important message about segregation and inclusion in American society.
So, the speaker’s refusal to use rhyme has two dimensions. On the one hand, it signals the speaker’s resistance to white poetic tradition. On the other, it marks the speaker’s interest in being as straightforward and direct as possible as he articulates his powerful protest against American racism.
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“I, Too” Speaker
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The speaker of “I, Too” is a black man. In line 2, he refers to himself as the “darker brother.” Taken literally, this suggests that he is part of a family—a family that includes people who are not as dark as he is. In other words, the family is mixed: it has both white and black members. However, the white members of the family are ashamed of their “darker brother”: when other people—“company”—come over, they force the speaker to eat by himself in the kitchen.
This family drama, of course, is more accurately thought of as an extended metaphor. It describes racism and segregation in America. The speaker is thus not just a single black person: he more broadly represents black people’s place in America culture. As the speaker describes his experiences, he also describes the way that black people's contributions to American history and culture have been ignored. The speaker has made significant contributions to American life; he is part of the American family. But white people refuse to acknowledge his contributions. They separate themselves from him, forcing him into the background.
The speaker's resilience also suggests the strength and perseverance of black communities. Although his contributions are ignored and although he is abused by white people, the speaker remains confident in his own beauty—and the beauty of the culture he represents. And he is confident that if it is powerful enough, this beauty will eventually force white people to recognize black people’s contribution to American culture and history.
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“I, Too” Setting
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“I, Too” has two settings, a literal one and a metaphorical one.
Most obviously, it’s literally set in a house where a family lives. The speaker is part of that family: in line 2, he calls himself its “darker brother.” In other words, the family is mixed, with both white and black members. But the speaker is persecuted by his white family members. The house is segregated: the speaker is forced to stay in the kitchen while the other members of the family entertain guests.
That said, it's best not to think of the poem so literally. This house, with its black and white family and its segregated spaces, is really part of an extended metaphor that describes American history and culture. The house is a metaphor for America itself. The events of the poem resonate with the complicated (and ongoing) history of racial injustice. As such, the setting of the poem could also be considered to be America as a whole.
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Literary and Historical Context of “I, Too”
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Literary Context
Langston Hughes was one of the leading figures in the Harlem Renaissance, a black literary movement that flourished during the 1920s in Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City. During the Harlem Renaissance, writers like Hughes, Claude McKay, and Zora Neale Hurston worked to develop a distinctly black American literary voice—a way to express black culture, history, and identity.
Different writers took different approaches to this task. For instance, early in his career, Claude McKay wrote sonnets, demonstrating that he could match the giants of European literature on their own terrain. In poems like “I, Too” and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Hughes took a different approach: rejecting European literary techniques like meter and rhyme, trying to develop new ways of writing to capture black experience. In doing so, he called on the example of poets like Walt Whitman—who had already started to experiment with free verse. “I, Too” builds on Whitman but also critiques him for excluding the black experience from his account of American life.
Regardless of the approach that Harlem Renaissance writers took, they had a common goal: they hoped to combat American racism through the power of their own poems, plays, novels, and stories. In other words, they hoped that they might contest racist policies and attitudes by demonstrating the power of black culture.
Historical Context
“I, Too” was first published in Langston Hughes’ 1926 collection Weary Blues. It was written during the 1920s. This was a difficult and dark period in American race relations. Segregation was legal throughout the country. Black Americans lived as second class citizens, confined to isolated neighborhoods with poor schools. They often lacked the right to vote. The Ku Klux Klan was resurgent across the South and Midwest, intimidating black communities and frequently lynching black men. For many black Americans, it was a desperate time—and many black families left their homes in the South to seek better jobs and better treatment in northern cities like New York and Chicago.
In response to the oppression they faced, black Americans built new institutions—like the NAACP—to fight for equal rights. Concentrated in Northern cities, new intellectual and cultural movements sprung up, with black artists, poets, and musicians mingling in blues clubs, speakeasies, salons, and galleries. These cultural movements were themselves very political, using artistic mediums to critique racism and press for equal treatment.
It's also worth noting that, at the time the poem was written, many white families employed black people as laborers, cooks, nannies, and other forms of domestic workers. Despite living in such proximity, however, these workers were denied equal treatment and relegated to the background. "I, Too" clearly takes aim at such hypocrisy, criticizing the absurdity of white families relying on the labor of black people while denying them decency, respect, and basic human rights.
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More “I, Too” Resources
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External Resources
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"I, Too" Read Aloud — The poet Langston Hughes recites his poem "I, Too."
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All You Need is a Wall — A high school teacher imagines what happens to the speaker of "I, Too" when he steps out of the kitchen.
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"I, Too" and the Smithsonian Museum — Smithsonian historian David Ward writes about Langston Hughes' poem "I, Too" and reflects on its importance to the Smithsonian's attempts to preserve African-American culture and history.
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Langston Hughes Biography — A detailed biography of Langston Hughes from The Poetry Foundation.
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An Introduction to the Harlem Renaissance — A detailed introduction to the Harlem Renaissance—with links to key poems by Hughes and other figures associated with the movement—from the Poetry Foundation.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Langston Hughes
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