Debby Strotman

Mrs. Connors
English III/5
24 September 2012
Let America be America Let America be Equal
On July 4
th
, 1776, the founding fathers of America signed a constitution that guaranteed
equal rights to all Americansthis constitution was the Declaration of Independence.
This constitution promises liberty, freedom, and equality to all citizens of America, and with the
promise of equality also comes the implication that in America there is also equal opportunity.
However, back in 1938, over 150 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed,
equality was nothing but a futile dream for African-Americans who were still struggling to gain
the same rights and opportunities as the white man who continued to hold numerous advantages
in society over them. This struggle is depicted in poet and social activists Langston Hughes
short poem Let America be America Again where the narrator represents not only the African-
American community which continues to be confined by poverty and racism, but also the whole
lower class of America, in order to highlight the inequity and disparity still found in American
society. Furthermore, Langston Hughes poignant short poem Let America be America Again
captures Hughes philosophical belief that success in America should be based on opportunity
and hard work rather than race and social status.
Hughes emphasizes the African American communitys struggle for equal rights and
opportunities in his short poem through a use of repetition and figurative language. Throughout
the poem, Hughes repeatedly remarks on how America was never America to [him], but
despite all this, he still yearns for it to be America again (Hughes). Through this use of
repetition, the reader is constantly reminded of how the narrator does not have the same equality
and opportunity as a white person in the country may have had at the time. As a result of this
constant reminder, Hughes is able to stress the unfairness of the American society which is
supposed to be based on equality and opportunity. Likewise, Hughes continues to heighten his
philosophical belief through parallelism in order to help connect the idea that the poor white . . .
the Negro . . . the red man . . . [and] the immigrant are all very similar despite their ethnicity ad
race since they are all caught up in a cycle of poverty and inequality in a dog eat dog world
(Hughes). Hughes acknowledges the fact that its not only the African-American community
caught up in the inequity of the American society, but also other minority groups, such as the
Native Americans, and even poor whites. Through this use of figurative language, Hughes
highlights the disadvantages the lower class faces over the upper class while also challenging the
so-called equality and opportunity that was supposed to have been a guaranteed right in
America since July 4
th
, 1776. Hughes makes it clear that he believes America should continue to
fight for the equality and opportunity they were promised in this land of the free, and make the
American dream not a dream but a reality!