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.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let
it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants
scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false
patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is
in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom
in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles
in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
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
Of dog eat
dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the Negro, problem 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.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In
the Old World while still a serf of kings,
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.
O,
I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my
home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain,
and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To
build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free?
Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions who have
nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs
we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The
millions who have nothing for our pay-
Except the dream we keep alive today.
O,
let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet
must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's,
Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith
and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring
back our mighty dream again.
Oh yes,
I say it plain,
America never
was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath --
America will be!
Text from Legacies, Carley Rees Bogarad and Jan Zlotnik Schmidt, 2nd ed. (Thompson Heinle, 2002)