The Full Text of “Let America Be America Again”
The Full Text of “Let America Be America Again”
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“Let America Be America Again” Introduction
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"Let America Be America Again" is a poem written by Langston Hughes in 1935 and published the following year. Hughes wrote the poem while riding a train from New York City to Ohio and reflecting on his life as a struggling writer during the Great Depression. In the poem, Hughes describes his own disillusionment with the American Dream and suggests that the United States has failed to fulfill its promise of freedom and equality for all people. The poem initially follows a traditional rhyme scheme before giving way to free verse and delving into the speaker's unconventional attitudes towards the American Dream.
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“Let America Be America Again” Summary
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The speaker opens the poem with a seemingly patriotic proclamation to let America be the country it once was, to once again embody the principles it champions. The speaker expresses nostalgia for a previous version of America that championed freedom and opportunity.
(The speaker immediately challenges this sentiment, however, suggesting that this image of the United States was never actually the reality for the speaker.)
The speaker invokes the concept of the American Dream, asking the country to once again represent freedom and opportunity for all—to once again be a place filled with strength and compassion, unsusceptible to the power imbalances and inequities created by the kind of scheming kings and tyrants who've stomped all over lower classes throughout history.
(This version of America, however, never was the reality for the speaker.)
The speaker asks for America to again be the kind of place that champions freedom above all else, where everyone has the same, legitimate opportunities, and life is defined by an unshakeable belief in equality.
(The speaker has never actually experienced any of that equality, however, and implies that the American Dream is nothing more than an empty lie promoted under the false pretense of patriotism.)
The speaker calls out to those who have been failed by the false promise of the American Dream.
The speaker identifies with the experiences of oppressed groups throughout American history: poor white people, African Americans haunted by the history of slavery, Native Americans pushed away from their own land by settlers, immigrants in search of a better future— yet who quickly realize that America is just like everywhere else, with the rich and powerful stomping all over the poor and marginalized.
The speaker identifies with a hopeful young person whose dreams will never actually be realized because he U.S. is operating on the same principles of greed and domination that have been the fabric of society since ancient civilization—principles that prioritize profits above all else, that encourage the hoarding of land and gold and the exploitation of workers.
The speaker identifies with the experiences of those whose lives are characterized by an absolute lack of freedom: the farmer is bound to the soil, the worker to the machine, the African American to servitude. The speaker then identifies with the masses of regular people, pushed to the brink of cruelty by their hunger—something the American Dream has done nothing to diminish. The speaker then pushes back against the idea that a strong work ethic will lead to economic and personal success, referring to working-class men who work hard their entire lives yet never escape poverty.
The speaker escalates this critique by pointing out that the most oppressed groups in America today were originally the most committed to the vision of the American Dream. European immigrants, who traveled to America from the "Old World" to seek out new opportunities and avoid persecution in their homelands, laid the cultural foundation for what would become the American Dream. The speaker contends that these immigrants, along with African slaves who were transported overseas against their will, were the ones who actually built the "homeland of the free" from the ground up.
The speaker stops to consider who is actually included in the "homeland of the free."
The speaker certainly isn't free, nor are the millions of underpaid workers going on strike and challenging the exploitation that they've been subjected to for generations (the speaker is directly referencing the labor movement that was gaining traction in the 1930s). The speaker argues that working-class Americans have nothing to show for their hard work and dedication—for all their patriotic songs and flag waving—except for an increasingly tenuous belief in the American Dream.
The speaker sets up the conclusion of the poem with a call to action for America to be itself again. While the speaker is adamant that the United States has failed to live up to its promise thus far, the speaker is confident that the realization of the American Dream is not only possible, but necessary. The speaker calls upon oppressed communities—the poor, Native Americans, African Americans; those whose blood, sweat, and tears build this country—to rise up and reinvent America according to its powerful founding ideals of equality and freedom for all.
People can hurl whatever insults they want to at the speaker, but these are useless against the strength of genuine freedom and equality. The marginalized must reassert their right to the American Dream and take back power from upper-class individuals who profit off of other people's labor without ever working themselves.
The speaker reiterates the fact that America never lived up to its promises of freedom, equality, and opportunity for people like the speaker. All the same, the speaker vows to create the America that should exist.
The speaker believes that the American Dream can be actualized once and for all, but only through the efforts of those who formed the backbone of the United States since its inception. The people must rise up from their horrific mistreatment and reclaim what's theirs—every bit of America, from sea to sea and everything in between. Only then can America truly embody the ideals on which it was founded.
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“Let America Be America Again” Themes
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The Failure of the American Dream
"Let America Be America Again" highlights the discrepancy between the ideals of the American Dream and the harsh realities of American life. The speaker argues that the United States has not yet fulfilled its promised vision of freedom and equality for all people.
Hughes wrote the poem during the Great Depression. The economic devastation of this event created a crisis of American cultural identity, white had been built on the promise of upward mobility (essentially, the ability to rise up out of the lower and middle classes) and greater opportunity for people from all walks of life. The speaker echoes this cultural crisis in the opening lines by declaring, "Let America be America again. / Let it be the dream it used to be." In other words, the speaker implies that America has lost its way and implores the country to return to its former glory.
It becomes clear, however, that the speaker does not actually agree with this nostalgic vision of American society. In fact, the speaker rebukes the belief that America was ever the "America" it has long been portrayed as, insisting instead that the American Dream was never achieved in the past. The speaker further invokes the founding ideals of freedom and equality, suggesting that American society has failed to meet the very standard on which it was built. The speaker makes this disdain for hollow talk of freedom and quality clear through a sarcastic reference to patriotic language, stating, "There's never been equality for me / Nor freedom in this 'homeland of the free.'"
The speaker then describes several counterexamples to the American Dream, notably the experiences of black Americans, the working poor, Native Americans, and immigrants. The speaker argues that all of these marginalized groups have experienced "the same old stupid plan / Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak." Thus, the speaker implies that American society is not special; rather, it has perpetuated the same systems of oppression and exploitation as the nations that came before it. By exploring the experiences of oppressed groups, the speaker demonstrates how the idealistic image of America erases communities that have been disadvantaged since the United States was established.
The speaker then ties this discussion directly into the political climate of the Great Depression and when the labor movement was gaining momentum. He references the workers on strike "who have nothing for our pay" except for the "dream that is almost dead today." The speaker's qualification that the dream is almost dead implies that there is still hope of American society living up to its promise in the future.
It is clear, however, that the American Dream will not survive if exploitative labor and greed continue to prevail. When the speaker is describing groups who have been failed by the American Dream, there is mention of "the man who never got ahead / The poorest worker bartered through the years." This image of the worker who never progresses up the socioeconomic ladder demonstrates how exploitation directly contradicts the promise of the American Dream: that is, that anyone who is willing to work hard can get ahead and create a better life for themselves. Instead, the poor are likely to remain poor, treated as disposable currency that can be "bartered" or exchanged indefinitely between various employers. The speaker contends that this system, which treats workers as commodities rather than human beings, has been pivotal in preventing the realization of the American Dream.
The speaker concludes with a call to action, proclaiming "From those who live like leeches on the people's lives / We must take back our land again, America!" The speaker thus encourages the oppressed groups to rise up and reinvent America in the vision of freedom and equality for all. The speaker ends the poem with a new promise that "America will be!" and notes that it is not too late for America to achieve its founding ideals. By ending this otherwise critical commentary in an optimistic way, the speaker ultimately embraces the potential of the American Dream and reinforces its powerful role in American culture.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-2
- Lines 3-4
- Line 5
- Lines 6-7
- Lines 8-9
- Line 10
- Lines 11-14
- Lines 15-16
- Lines 19-33
- Lines 34-51
- Lines 52-61
- Lines 62-64
- Lines 64-72
- Lines 73-79
- Lines 82-86
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Oppression in the United States
In "Let America Be America Again," Hughes analyzes the complex relationship between oppression and the American Dream. After conveying the traditional narrative of the American Dream in the opening stanzas—as the promise of opportunity and freedom for all—the speaker presents a counter-narrative through the eyes of marginalized groups in American history.
This shift is signaled in the italicized rhyming couplet ("Say, who are you ..."), which indicates the introduction of a new perspective into the poem. The mumbling figure in the dark, who represents all of the people who have been forgotten in the idealistic conception of the American Dream, now has an opportunity to speak their truth and reinvent the cultural narrative. By grounding the poem in the perspective of marginalized groups, the speaker can fully explore a historical injustice: the fact that the groups who have formed the foundation of America have had limited access to the economic prosperity and success promised by the American Dream.
In addition to pointing out this historical injustice, the speaker traces a common trend that unites all of these groups: an utter lack of freedom over their own lives. The farmer is described as a "bondsman" to the soil, invoking an antiquated definition of the term that renders it synonymous to "slave." The worker is "sold to the machine" in the same manner that the slave is sold to the slave master. The speaker completes this comparison by finally mentioning "the Negro, servant to you all" and implying that black Americans represent the greatest absence of freedom given their historical status as slaves in the United States.
The speaker goes on to describe the oppressed as "the one who dreamt our basic dream," suggesting that the American Dream has failed the people who not only believed in it the most, but who made its inception possible. Thus oppression in the United States takes on a new disturbing dimension; not only is oppression incompatible with the ideals of the American Dream, but it disproportionately impacts the same groups that were inspired by that very "dream" to create America in the first place.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Line 5
- Lines 7-9
- Line 10
- Lines 15-16
- Lines 17-18
- Lines 19-38
- Lines 39-44
- Lines 45-50
- Lines 52-55
- Lines 62-64
- Lines 65-70
- Lines 80-82
- Line 86
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Greed, Class, and Labor
The speaker directly connects the failure of the American Dream to live up to its potential to the American obsession with profit and greed. This is fitting given that, as previously noted in this guide, Hughes wrote the poem during the Great Depression, at a time when labor movements sought more rights and protections for American workers. The speaker of the poem presents these workers as toiling away on behalf of an upper class that exploits the labor of the masses for their own personal gain. This practice is antithetical to American ideals of freedom and opportunity, the poem argues, because it has essentially made workers slaves to their labor.
This is what the speaker means when identifying as "the farmer, bondsman to the soil" and "the worker sold to the machine." The speaker is saying that workers cannot be free because they have no choice but to work tirelessly in a society that privileges profit above all else. They must work simply to survive, and have no meaningful chance to actually rise up in society.
This is reiterated with the speaker mentions the "Old World" with its "serfs." Serfs were essentially slaves forced to work the land for a lord in feudal Europe. The speaker makes this reference to draw a parallel between the oppression of serfs and the living conditions of working-class Americans, despite the fact that the latter are supposedly part of a more progressive "New World."
The speaker later alludes to the 1930s labor movements directly with the lines about "The millions on relief today? / The millions shot down when we strike? / The millions who have nothing for our pay?" This is a reference to the Great Depression, which lefts millions out of work. The relief programs mentioned were part of the New Deal in the 1930s, which provided temporary work programs to reduce rampant unemployment. How, the speaker asks here, can America call itself a land of equal opportunity if millions of patriotic, flag-waving Americans have lost their livelihoods?
The speaker also repeatedly criticizes the selfishness and greed of the upper class—and points out how this is totally incompatible with the ideals behind the American Dream. The United States was founded as a place "Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme / That any man be crushed by one above." In other words, America is supposed to be a country free from dictators or monarchs whose main concern is preserving their own power at the expense of the masses over which they rule.
Later, the speaker is even more direct in his criticism. The speaker deems the ruling class "those who live like leeches on the people’s lives," comparing them to parasites who feed off other people's labor without contributing anything of their own. They "take the pay" of hardworking Americans—Americans, the speaker insists, who have as much a right to the promise of America as anyone else.
People believe America is a place of "hope," the speaker says, yet when they arrive they find that the same old systems of oppression—of "dog eat dog," rich vs. poor—are playing out. The "young man" who wants to establish himself in America is thus instead subject to "that ancient endless chain / Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! / Of grab the gold! ... Of owning everything for one’s own greed!" In other words, America has simply recreated an endless, age-old cycle in which the lower classes are exploited by the greediness of those above them. American society is driven by "greed" and "profit"—not liberty and justice for all.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Line 5
- Lines 7-9
- Line 10
- Lines 13-40
- Lines 45-70
- Lines 73-74
- Lines 80-86
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Let America Be America Again”
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Lines 1-5
Let America be ...
... America to me.)The opening stanza starts with a proclamation, invoking a sense of nostalgia for a better version of America that has (supposedly) come and gone. The speaker seems to want America to once again be the kind of place defined by a sense of freedom and opportunity for all, for the country to once again embody the "American Dream" itself.
The first set of lines establishes the speaker's frequent use of anaphora. The repetition of "Let" and "Let it be the" make the poem feel like an invocation of sorts. This is also likely an allusion to the lyric "let freedom ring" from the song "America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)," which served as a de facto national anthem until the 1930s. The speaker, then, is using language deeply connected to America and its founding ideals. Indeed, the word "America" itself is used four times within the first five lines.
Additionally, the speaker references the concept of the American Dream directly in the second line. This reference effectively positions the speaker's discussion in relation to this cultural concept and its social, political, and historical implications. The speaker goes on to personify America itself as the "pioneer" seeking freedom in a new land. The figure of the pioneer is emblematic of the American Dream and its promise of newfound freedom and opportunity. By drawing from the American cultural imagination, the speaker initially seems to endorse conventional attitudes about American society.
This perspective, however, is immediately contradicted by the stand-alone line that follows the first stanza:
(America never was America to me.)
The speaker suggests that the American Dream never reached fruition in their own life, indicating that the speaker's perspective is more complex than it appeared to be at first glance. The fact that this phrase is contained within parenthesis and separated from the opening stanza suggests that it is something the broader narrative of America has ignored; the speaker's experience is an inconvenient reality that undermines the idea that America was ever the kind of place it has purported to be.
In terms of form, the opening stanza is a quatrain and with ABAB rhyme scheme. There's the slant rhyme of "again"/"plain" and the full rhyme of "be"/"free." This is a pretty easy, standard pattern for a poem, suggesting a sense of complacency—which is then abruptly broken by the standalone line 5. However, this standalone line also rhymes with the B sound from the quatrain—that is, "me" rhymes with "be" and "free"—suggesting that, though the speaker has been excluded from the American dream, the speaker, too, is still a part of America.
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Lines 6-10
Let America be ...
... America to me.) -
Lines 11-14
O, let my ...
... air we breathe. -
Lines 15-18
(There’s never been ...
... across the stars? -
Lines 19-24
I am the ...
... crush the weak. -
Lines 25-30
I am the ...
... one’s own greed! -
Lines 31-36
I am the ...
... yet today—O, Pioneers! -
Lines 37-40
I am the ...
... serf of kings, -
Lines 41-46
Who dreamt a ...
... be my home— -
Lines 47-50
For I’m the ...
... of the free.” -
Lines 51-55
The free? ...
... for our pay? -
Lines 56-61
For all the ...
... almost dead today. -
Lines 62-70
O, let America ...
... mighty dream again. -
Lines 71-75
Sure, call me ...
... America! -
Lines 76-79
O, yes, I ...
... America will be! -
Lines 80-86
Out of the ...
... make America again!
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“Let America Be America Again” Symbols
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America
The greatest symbol in the poem might be America itself. America is supposed to symbolize everything that is encapsulated in the American Dream, and the speaker frequently refers to the conventional understanding of what America is supposed to represent: opportunity, freedom, equality, and so on. Moreover, the speaker makes it clear that while America has symbolized these ideals and beliefs for many people throughout history, it has yet to make such ideals a reality.
As such, by the end of the poem, America is transformed into a symbol of failure, an example of what happens when a nation does not manifest its own founding beliefs. At the same time, however, America continues to represent the hope and promise of tomorrow. Despite the speaker's criticisms of America's past and present, the poem ends on an optimistic note, suggesting that America still has the potential to bring its original ideals to fruition.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 1: “America,” “America”
- Line 5: “America,” “America”
- Line 6: “America”
- Line 10: “America”
- Line 44: “America”
- Line 62: “America,” “America”
- Line 67: “America”
- Line 75: “America!”
- Line 77: “America,” “America”
- Line 79: “America”
- Line 86: “America”
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Pioneer
The figure of the pioneer is referenced multiple times throughout the poem, probably because of its important status in American culture and history. The speaker creates a connection between the original pioneers, who formed the first settlements of what would eventually become the United States, and the diverse groups of people who have built America on the backbone of their own hard labor.
The hopes and aspirations of the first pioneers, now reflected in the efforts and protests of the working-class, symbolize the spirit of early America before it was consumed by unbridled capitalism and greed. The speaker invokes this symbol of the pioneer to remind readers of what America was supposed to be about and how far it has fallen from its original message. The pioneer, seeking a new life and new opportunities, symbolizes all hard-working Americans who are striving for a better life in the United States.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 3: “pioneer”
- Line 36: “Pioneers!”
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“Let America Be America Again” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Metaphor
Metaphor is used throughout the poem to highlight the speaker's commentary about the American Dream. In the first stanza, the speaker uses metaphor when comparing America to the "pioneer on the plain" seeking newfound freedom. This opening metaphor establishes the importance of the "pioneer" figure in American culture and suggests that the pioneer's trailblazing spirit lies at the heart of the American Dream.
This metaphor continues to develop into the next stanza, likening America to "the dream the dreamers dreamed," which serves as a direct reference to the American Dream. In this way, the speaker expresses hope that America will one day embody the ideals that have (so far) remained captive in American's cultural imagination.
As the speaker's commentary becomes increasingly critical of America's failure to live up to its ideals, the metaphorical language within the poem also assumes a more pessimistic tone. Lines 17-18 contain highly symbolic metaphors:
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?Here the speaker is inviting other marginalized peoples to see themselves in this poem. Marginalized Americans "mumble[] in the dark," a metaphor that implies their exclusion from the bright promise of America. The idea of drawing a "veil across the stars" further implies a loss of hope—that these people no longer even entertain the possibility of achieving the American Dream.
The speaker metaphorically identifies with marginalized members of American society—"the poor white," "the Negro bearing slavery's scars," etc. The speaker isn't literally all of these people, but is instead using metaphorical language to underscore that all these disparate groups are united in their oppression and exclusion from the promise of America. The metaphorical reference to "slavery's scars," meanwhile, implies the lasting impact of this practice on modern Americans, while the idea of an "immigrant clutching the hope I seek" is a figurative way of saying many immigrants came to America filled with hope that America would be a place of opportunity.
Yet the speaker then describes American society as "dog eat dog," an idiom that is generally used to describe a situation where people are willing to dominate and harm each other in order to succeed. The "dog eat dog" metaphor stands in stark contrast to the "great strong land of love" encapsulated by the American Dream, revealing the ways in which the United States has continued to reinforce long-standing systems of oppression and exploitation. The speaker also describes Americans as being "Tangled in that ancient endless chain," a metaphorical reference to the power struggles that continue to benefit the wealthy and privileged at the expense of most Americans.
The speaker then once again identifies with various marginalized and oppressed groups, each of whom are metaphorically described as being slaves to their labor in a capitalist society (the "worker," for instance, has been "sold to the machine"). The speaker next becomes all "the people" who've been left "hungry"—both literally, due to their poverty, and figuratively, in the sense that their hunger for opportunity and advancement, things promised by the American Dream, has never been sated.
Yet the ideals behind that dream remain strong, the speaker insists, comparing it to "steel" that "does not stain." Steel is a strong metal that resists tarnish, and this metaphor suggests that enduring power of freedom as well as its ability to resist external corruption. The reference to "steel" might also make readers think of both swords and construction—thus suggesting freedom itself as a kind of weapon as well as the framework of a just society.
Where metaphor appears in the poem:- Line 2: “Let it be the dream it used to be.”
- Lines 3-4: “Let it be the pioneer on the plain / Seeking a home where he himself is free.”
- Line 6: “Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—”
- Line 7: “Let it be that great strong land of love”
- Lines 11-12: “O, let my land be a land where Liberty / Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,”
- Line 14: “Equality is in the air we breathe.”
- Lines 17-18: “Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? / And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?”
- Lines 19-23: “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”
- Line 24: “Of dog eat dog,”
- Lines 25-27: “I am the young man, full of strength and hope, / Tangled in that ancient endless chain / Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!”
- Lines 31-32: “I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. / I am the worker sold to the machine.”
- Lines 33-38: “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.”
- Lines 41-44: “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.”
- Line 72: “The steel of freedom does not stain.”
- Lines 80-81: “Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, / The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,”
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Imagery
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Repetition
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Enjambment
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Allusion
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Personification
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Rhetorical Question
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Caesura
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Anaphora
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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"Let America Be America Again" 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.
- Pioneer
- Connive
- Tyrant
- Red man
- Bondsman
- Barter
- Serf
- Relief
- Foundry
- Graft
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(Location in poem: Line 3: “pioneer”; Line 36: “Pioneers”)
A pioneer is a person who is the first to explore or settle a new country or area. In the poem, the speaker refers to the pioneers who formed the settlements that would eventually become the United States.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Let America Be America Again”
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Form
As a free verse poem, "Let America Be America Again" does not follow a traditional structure. Rather, it contains a variety of stanza forms and abandons any semblance of structure midway through the poem. The first five stanzas are made up of three quatrains interspersed with two stand-alone single-line stanzas.
The first fourteen lines of the poem closely—though not completely—resembles a Shakespearean sonnet—a poem of 14 lines made up of three quatrains and ending with a two-line rhyming couplet. The rhyme scheme of a sonnet is also ABAB, which is the exact rhyme scheme for the quatrains here. The final couplet of a sonnet presents a complication to or resolution of the argument at hand. Hughes's poem, in the beginning, is thus very much a nod to this classic form. There are three quatrains with ABAB rhyme schemes, though in "Let America Be America Again" one could argue that the rhyming couplet that offers a twist on everything that has come before has been split up into the two one-line stanzas that make up lines 5 and 10.
The generally traditional structure of the beginning of the poem makes sense: the opening of the poem conforms to traditional descriptions of America as a place defined by liberty, equality, and freedom. Yet the standalone lines between these stanzas—"(America never was America to me.)" and "(It never was America to me.)"—break up that sonnet pattern. They disrupt the pretty, contained vision of America with the speaker's experience—reflecting, on a thematic level, how the experiences of marginalized Americans disrupt the idealized vision of the American Dream.
After this, the poem's form departs from any conventional structure whatsoever. The remainder of the poem does not have any established meter or rhyme scheme, resulting in a combination of long and sprawling stanzas, concise quatrains, and independent verses with various types of rhyme and meter.
This lack of structure is itself evocative. The speaker is no longer pretending that America conforms to its neat, tidy image in popular culture. Instead, it is a messy place, riddled with inconsistencies and inequalities—ideas reflected in the unpredictable form of the poem.
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Meter
The poem, overall, can be considered free verse. The first few stanzas do seem to approximate iambic pentameter (five iambs, or poetic feet with a da DUM rhythm, per line). Not coincidentally this is the meter used in Shakespearean sonnets (as noted in our Form discussion, the opening of this poem closely resembles a modified sonnet). Take lines 2-4:
Let | it be | the dream | it used | to be.
Let | it be | the pi | oneer | on the plain
Seeking | a home | where he | himself | is free.This meter is only loosely upheld and has a lot of variations. The first two lines are missing their initial unstressed beats, making them something called headless catalectic; line 3 ends with an anapest ("on the plain"); line 4 opens with a trochee ("Seeking"). Even so, in general, these quatrains certainly feel more metrically regular than the rest of the poem.
After the third quatrain, however, any approximation of iambic pentameter is abandoned altogether and no set meter is consistently used for the remainder of the poem. This transition coincides with the end of a consistent rhyme scheme, indicating an overall departure from traditional structure and poetic convention.
This shift occurs as the poem becomes more radical in its political commentary, almost as if Hughes's revolutionary message cannot be contained within a traditional meter. Therefore, the unconventional meter appears to match the revolutionary nature of the speaker's argument. In this sense, the metric pattern of the poem transforms in conjunction with the poem's critique of American society.
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Rhyme Scheme
The poems first three quatrains follow a clear ABAB rhyme scheme. For example:
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.And so forth. (Note that "again" and "plain" are technically slant rhymes.) There are then two rhyming couplets in a row once the quatrains end:
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)And:
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?Again, as noted in our discussions of the poem's form and meter, this first chunk thus very closely resembles a Shakespearean sonnet—which consists of three quatrains rhymed ABAB followed by a rhyming couplet.
Except, again, these quatrains with the ABAB pattern are separated by standalone verses. These verses break the clean, recognizable pattern of rhyme, reflecting the way in which the speaker's experiences deflate the idealized vision of America.
After the narrative shift signaled by the italicized couplet (quoted above), this consistent rhyme scheme is abandoned, but the poem continues to frequently employ internal and slant rhyme. End rhyme continues to be used as well, but there is no consistent structure to it.
Interestingly, this shift in rhyme scheme coincides with a shift thematic content. In the beginning, the stanzas are mostly designed to reiterate orthodox and patriotic beliefs about American culture. As the poem progresses and becomes increasingly more critical of its subject, the traditional rhyme scheme is abandoned and replaced with a complex form of free verse. Just as the speaker rejects the traditional notion of the American Dream, the poem pushes the boundaries of traditional poetry and effectively combines both conventional and unconventional rhyme schemes.
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“Let America Be America Again” Speaker
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The speaker is quickly established as a critic of American society whose goal is to reveal the shortcomings and failures of the American Dream. At first, the speaker appears to only discuss their personal disappointment with the American Dream, explaining how their individual experience in the United States has not lived up to the promise of freedom and opportunity.
Throughout the poem, however, the speaker assumes various identities that represent the diversity of American society: African-Americans, immigrants, Native-Americans, the working class, and so on. The speaker uses the experiences and perspectives of these groups to craft a larger commentary about oppression in the United States. The speaker thus embodies the experiences of anyone who has been failed by the empty promise of the American Dream.
The speaker's perspective closely relates to the life experiences of the poet, Langston Hughes. During the 1930s, when the poem was written, Hughes was dealing with his own financial hardship and struggling to support himself as a writer. In the midst of his own economic adversity, he realized that many Americans were coping with the same challenges and inequities. The speaker's disillusionment with the American Dream parallels the same disillusionment that Hughes experienced in the wake of the Great Depression.
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“Let America Be America Again” Setting
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"Let America Be America Again" is, of course, set in the United States. Various allusions suggest that it takes place more specifically during the Great Depression and the subsequent labor movement that sought to address the problems brought on by this economic crisis. These include the references to the "millions on relief today," which is a nod to the temporary work programs of the 1930s meant to help curb rampant unemployment.
The poem also fluctuates between other periods in history in order to explore the historical and cultural experiences of various groups in the United States. It nods to "Old World" feudal Europe, with its serfs and kings; to early explorers who set off to settle the "New World"; to the slave trade; and so forth. By interweaving these timelines, the speaker demonstrates how contemporary society has not killed the American Dream, but rather exposed the false and empty nature of it all along.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Let America Be America Again”
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Literary Context
Langston Hughes wrote this poem following his massive success as a writer during the 1920s. Hughes gained fame through his contributions to the Harlem Renaissance, a social and literary movement in New York City that championed the self-expression and empowerment of black communities. As a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes received both critical acclaim and commercial success for his literary portrayals of the black experience in the United States when Jim Crow was still the law of the land.
Despite his early success as a young writer, Hughes's literary prowess was not immune to the devastating impact of the Great Depression. By the early 1930s, Hughes was struggling to support himself and felt as though all of his previous success had been stripped from his life and work. It was in this mindset that he wrote "Let America Be America Again" in a single day with minimal revisions. The poem emerges as a reflection of Hughes's disappointment with the trajectory of not only his own career, but of the country as a whole. His frustration with his own descent into poverty, combined with his acknowledgment that most of the country was experiencing similar struggles, inspired his poetic refutation of the American Dream.
Historical Context
Although this work is strongly influenced by the personal life of its poet, it is also the direct product of the Great Depression and the social unrest that followed the stock market crash of 1929. As unemployment escalated to 25 percent of the U.S. population, Americans experienced unprecedented levels of poverty and economic instability into the 1930s. While the economic downturn continued, Americans became increasingly critical of the widening gap between the rich upper-class and ordinary Americans.
These social tensions paved the way for the labor movement in the 1930s, which demanded greater rights and protections for workers who were left vulnerable and destitute during the Great Depression. The protests of the labor movement, which Hughes alludes to in the poem, eventually led to the development of unions and the passage of labor laws that mitigated the power imbalance between employer and laborer. Hughes grounds his poem in the center of this political struggle, suggesting that protesters are fighting for the same rights and liberties that were promised to them by the American Dream.
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More “Let America Be America Again” Resources
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External Resources
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The Poem Out Loud — Listen to a full reading of the poem by Danez Smith at The Loft Literary Center.
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The Great Depression — A resource for those interested in learning more about the Great Depression and its lasting impact on American society.
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Biography of Langston Hughes — A biographical account of Hughes's life and work.
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The Harlem Renaissance — A detailed overview of the Harlem Renaissance and its impact on American literature.
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The Legacy of Langston Hughes — An NPR podcast covering the life and work of Langston Hughes, including a reading and discussion of "Let America Be America Again."
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Langston Hughes
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