Selected Poems of Langston Hughes (13 page)

George Sallie Coolie Boy gets tired sometimes.

So all over the world today

folks with not even Mister in front of their names

are raring up and talking back

to those called Mister.

From Harlem past Hong Kong talking back.

Shut up, says Gerald L. K. Smith.

Shut up, says the Governor of South Carolina.

Shut up, says the Governor of Singapore.

Shut up, says Strydom.

Hell no shut up! say the people

with no titles in front of their names.

Hell, no! It’s time to talk back now!

History says it’s time,

And the radio, too, foggy with propaganda

that says a mouthful

and don’t mean half it says—

but is true anyhow:

    LIBERTY!

    FREEDOM!

    DEMOCRACY!

True anyhow no matter how many

Liars use those words.

The people with no titles in front of their names

hear those words and shout them back

at the Misters, Lords, Generals, Viceroys,

Governors of South Carolina, Gerald L. K. Strydoms.

    Shut up, people!

    Shut up! Shut up!

    Shut up, George!

    Shut up, Sallie!

    Shut up, Coolie!

    Shut up, Indian!

    Shut up, Boy!

George Sallie Coolie Indian Boy

black brown yellow bent down working

earning riches for the whole world

with no title in front of name

just man woman tired says:

    No shut up!

    Hell no shut up!

    
So, naturally, there’s trouble

    in these our times

    because of people with no titles

    in front of their names.

Sleepy giant,

You’ve been resting awhile.

Now I see the thunder

And the lightning

In your smile.

Now I see

The storm clouds

In your waking eyes:

The thunder,

The wonder,

And the young

Surprise.

Your every step reveals

The new stride

In your thighs.

Democracy will not come

Today, this year

    Nor ever

Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right

As the other fellow has

    To stand

On my two feet

And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,

Let things take their course
.

Tomorrow is another day
.

I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.

I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

    Freedom

    Is a strong seed

    Planted

    In a great need.

    I live here, too.

    I want freedom

    Just as you.

Consider me,

A colored boy,

Once sixteen,

Once five, once three,

Once nobody,

Now me.

Before me

Papa, mama,

Grandpa, grandma,

So on back

To original

Pa.

    (A capital letter there,

    
He

    Being Mystery.)

Consider me,

Colored boy,

Downtown at eight,

Sometimes working late,

Overtime pay

To sport away,

Or save,

Or give my Sugar

For the things

She needs.

My Sugar,

Consider her

Who works, too—

Has to.

One don’t make enough

For all the stuff

It takes to live.

Forgive me

What I lack,

Black,

Caught in a crack

That splits the world in two

From China

By way of Arkansas

To Lenox Avenue.

Consider me,

On Friday the eagle flies.

Saturday laughter, a bar, a bed.

Sunday prayers syncopate glory.

Monday comes,

To work at eight,

Late,

Maybe.

Consider me,

Descended also

From the

Mystery.

Children, I come back today

To tell you a story of the long dark way

That I had to climb, that I had to know

In order that the race might live and grow.

Look at my face—dark as the night—

Yet shining like the sun with love’s true light.

I am the child they stole from the sand

Three hundred years ago in Africa’s land.

I am the dark girl who crossed the wide sea

Carrying in my body the seed of the free.

I am the woman who worked in the field

Bringing the cotton and the corn to yield.

I am the one who labored as a slave,

Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave—

Children sold away from me, husband sold, too.

No safety, no love, no respect was I due.

Three hundred years in the deepest South:

But God put a song and a prayer in my mouth.

God put a dream like steel in my soul.

Now, through my children, I’m reaching the goal.

Now, through my children, young and free,

I realize the blessings denied to me.

I couldn’t read then. I couldn’t write.

I had nothing, back there in the night.

Sometimes, the valley was filled with tears,

But I kept trudging on through the lonely years.

Sometimes, the road was hot with sun,

But I had to keep on till my work was done:

I
had
to keep on! No stopping for me—

I was the seed of the coming Free.

I nourished the dream that nothing could smother

Deep in my breast—the Negro mother.

I had only hope then, but now through you,

Dark ones of today, my dreams must come true:

All you dark children in the world out there,

Remember my sweat, my pain, my despair.

Remember my years, heavy with sorrow—

And make of those years a torch for tomorrow.

Make of my past a road to the light

Out of the darkness, the ignorance, the night.

Lift high my banner out of the dust.

Stand like free men supporting my trust.

Believe in the right, let none push you back.

Remember the whip and the slaver
’s
track.

Remember how the strong in struggle and strife

Still bar you the way, and deny you life—

But march ever forward, breaking down bars.

Look ever upward at the sun and the stars.

Oh, my dark children, may my dreams and my prayers

Impel you forever up the great stairs—

For I will be with you till no white brother

Dares keep down the children of the Negro mother.

There are words like
Freedom

Sweet and wonderful to say.

On my heart-strings freedom sings

All day everyday.

There are words like
Liberty

That almost make me cry.

If you had known what I knew

You would know why.

When a man starts out with nothing,

When a man starts out with his hands

Empty, but clean,

When a man starts out to build a world,

He starts first with himself

And the faith that is in his heart—

The strength there,

The will there to build.

First in the heart is the dream.

Then the mind starts seeking a way.

His eyes look out on the world,

On the great wooded world,

On the rich soil of the world,

On the rivers of the world.

The eyes see there materials for building,

See the difficulties, too, and the obstacles.

The hand seeks tools to cut the wood,

To till the soil, and harness the power of the waters.

Then the hand seeks other hands to help,

A community of hands to help—

Thus the dream becomes not one man’s dream alone,

But a community dream.

Not my dream alone, but our dream.

Not my world alone,

But your world and my world
,

Belonging to all the hands who build.

A long time ago, but not too long ago,

Ships came from across the sea

Bringing Pilgrims and prayer-makers,

Adventurers and booty seekers,

Free men and indentured servants,

Slave men and slave masters, all new—

To a new world, America!

With billowing sails the galleons came

Bringing men and dreams, women and dreams.

In little bands together,

Heart reaching out to heart,

Hand reaching out to hand,

They began to build our land.

Some were free hands

Seeking a greater freedom,

Some were indentured hands

Hoping to find their freedom,

Some were slave hands

Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom.

But the word was there always:

                         FREEDOM.

Down into the earth went the plow

In the free hands and the slave hands,

In indentured hands and adventurous hands,

Turning the rich soil went the plow in many hands

That planted and harvested the food that fed

And the cotton that clothed America.

Clang against the trees went the ax in many hands

That hewed and shaped the rooftops of America.

Splash into the rivers and the seas went the boat-hulls

That moved and transported America.

Crack went the whips that drove the horses

Across the plains of America.

Free hands and slave hands,

Indentured hands, adventurous hands,

White hands and black hands

Held the plow handles,

Ax handles, hammer handles,

Launched the boats and whipped the horses

That fed and housed and moved America.

Thus together through labor,

All these hands made America.

Labor! Out of labor came the villages

And the towns that grew to cities.

Labor! Out of labor came the rowboats

And the sailboats and the steamboats,

Came the wagons, stage coaches,

Out of labor came the factories,

Came the foundries, came the railroads,

Came the marts and markets, shops and stores,

Came the mighty products moulded, manufactured,

Sold in shops, piled in warehouses,

Shipped the wide world over:

Out of labor—white hands and black hands—

Came the dream, the strength, the will,

And the way to build America.

Now it is Me here, and You there.

Now it’s Manhattan, Chicago,

Seattle, New Orleans,

Boston and El Paso—

Now it is the U.S.A.

A long time ago, but not too long ago, a man said:

               ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL …

               ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR

               WITH CERTAIN INALIENABLE

                         RIGHTS …

               
AMONG THESE LIFE, LIBERTY

               AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

His name was Jefferson. There were slaves then,

But in their hearts the slaves believed him, too,

And silently took for granted

That what he said was also meant for them.

It was a long time ago,

But not so long ago at that, Lincoln said:

               NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH

               TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN

               WITHOUT THAT OTHER’S CONSENT.

There were slaves then, too,

But in their hearts the slaves knew

What he said must be meant for every human being—

Else it had no meaning for anyone.

Then a man said:

               BETTER TO DIE FREE,

               THAN TO LIVE SLAVES.

He was a colored man who had been a slave

But had run away to freedom.

And the slaves knew

What Frederick Douglass said was true.

With John Brown at Harpers Ferry, Negroes died.

John Brown was hung.

Before the Civil War, days were dark,

And nobody knew for sure

When freedom would triumph.

“Or if it would,” thought some.

But others knew it had to triumph.

In those dark days of slavery,

Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,

The slaves made up a song:

               KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE PLOW!

                         HOLD ON!

That song meant just what it said:
Hold on!

Freedom will come!

               KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE PLOW!

                         HOLD ON!

Out of war, it came, bloody and terrible!

But it came!

Some there were, as always,

Who doubted that the war would end right,

That the slaves would be free,

Or that the union would stand.

But now we know how it all came out.

Out of the darkest days for a people and a nation,

We know now how it came out.

There was light when the battle clouds rolled away.

There was a great wooded land,

And men united as a nation.

America is a dream.

The poet says it was promises.

The people say it
is
promises—that will come true.

The people do not always say things out loud,

Nor write them down on paper.

The people often hold

Great thoughts in their deepest hearts

And sometimes only blunderingly express them,

Haltingly and stumbling say them,

And faultily put them into practice.

The people do not always understand each other.

But there is, somewhere there,

Always the
trying
to understand,

And the
trying
to say,

“You are a man. Together we are building our land.”