The Panther and the Lash

THE PANTHER AND THE LASH (1967)

ASK YOUR MAMA (1961)

SELECTED POEMS OF LANGSTON HUGHES (1958)

MONTAGE OF A DREAM DEFERRED (1951)

ONE-WAY TICKET (1949)

FIELDS OF WONDER (1947)

SHAKESPEARE IN HARLEM (1942)

THE DREAM-KEEPER (1932)

FINE CLOTHES TO THE JEW (1927)

THE WEARY BLUES (1926)

FIVE PLAYS BY LANGSTON HUGHES (1963)

SOMETHING IN COMMON AND OTHER STORIES (1963)

THE SWEET FLYPAPER OF LIFE (1955)

LAUGHING TO KEEP FROM CRYING (1952)

THE WAYS OF WHITE FOLKS (1934)

NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER (1930)

SIMPLE’S UNCLE SAM (1965)

BEST OF SIMPLE (1961)

SIMPLE STAKES A CLAIM (1957)

SIMPLE TAKES A WIFE (1953)

SIMPLE SPEAKS HIS MIND (1950)

FIRST BOOK OF AFRICA (1964)

THE FIRST BOOK OF THE WEST INDIES (1956)

THE FIRST BOOK OF RHYTHMS (1954)

THE FIRST BOOK OF JAZZ (1954)

THE FIRST BOOK OF THE NEGROES (1952)

—with Arna Bontemps

POPO AND FIFINA (1932)

FAMOUS NEGRO HEROES OF AMERICA (1958)

I WONDER AS I WANDER (1956)

FAMOUS NEGRO MUSIC-MAKERS (1955)

FAMOUS AMERICAN NEGROES (1954)

THE BIG SEA (1940)

THE LANGSTON HUGHES READER (1958)

—with Milton Meltzer

BLACK MAGIC: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN ENTERTAINMENT (1967)

FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: THE STORY OF THE NAACP (1962)

—with Milton Meltzer

A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE NEGRO IN AMERICA (1956)

Copyright © 1967 by Arna Bontemps and George Houston Bass, Executors of the Estate of Langston Hughes.

Copyright 1932, 1934, 1942, 1947, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1955, 1956, © 1958, 1959, 1961, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, by Langston Hughes. Copyright 1942, 1948 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Copyright renewed 1970, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1991 by Arna Bontemps and George Houston Bass.

Copyright renewed 1960, 1962 by Langston Hughes.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. This edition first published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1967.

Certain poems in this collection were previously published in the following books by Langston Hughes:

Ask Your Mama (1961): “Cultural Exchange”

Fields of Wonder
(1947): “Words Like Freedom,” “Oppression,” “Dream Dust”

The Langston Hughes
Reader
(1958): “Elderly Leaders” under the title “Elderly Politicians”

Montage of a
Dream Deferred
(1951): “Corner Meeting,” “Motto,” “Children’s Rhymes”

One-Way
Ticket
(1949): “Harlem” under the title “Puzzled,” “Who But the Lord?,” “Third Degree,” “October 16: The Raid,” “Still Here,” “Florida Road Workers,” “Freedom” under the title “Democracy?,” “Warning” under the title “Roland Hayes Beaten,” “Daybreak in Alabama”

Scottsboro
Limited
(1932): “Christ in Alabama,” “Justice”

Selected Poems of Langston
Hughes (1959): “Dream Deferred” under the title “Harlem,” “American Heartbreak” “Georgia Dusk,” “Jim Crow Car” under the title “Lunch in a Jim Crow Car”

Shakespeare in
Harlem
(1942): “Ku Klux,” “Merry-Go-Round”

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hughes, Langston, 1902–1967.
The panther & the lash : poems of our times / Langston Hughes. —
1st Vintage classics ed.
p.    cm. — (Vintage classics)
eISBN: 978-0-307-94939-4
1. Afro-Americans—Poetry. I. Title. II. Title: Panther and the lash. III. Series.
PS3515.U274P3    1992
811′.52—dc20            91-50087

B9876

v3.1

who started it all when, on being ordered to get up and stand at the back of the bus where there were no seats left, she said simply, “My feet are tired,” and did not move, thus setting off in 1955 the boycotts, the sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, the petitions, the marches, the voter registration drives, and
I Shall Not Be Moved
.

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

About The Author

Permissions Acknowledgments

Ladder, flag, and amplifier

now are what the soap box

used to be.

The speaker catches fire,

looking at listeners’ faces.

His words jump down

to stand

in their

places.

Here on the edge of hell

Stands Harlem—

Remembering the old lies,

The old kicks in the back,

The old “Be patient”

They told us before.

Sure, we remember.

Now when the man at the corner store

Says sugar’s gone up another two cents,

And bread one,

And there’s a new tax on cigarettes—

We remember the job we never had,

Never could get,

And can’t have now

Because we’re colored.

So we stand here

On the edge of hell

In Harlem

And look out on the world

And wonder

What we’re gonna do

In the face of what

We remember.

Uptown on Lenox Avenue

Where a nickel costs a dime,

In these lush and thieving days

When million-dollar thieves

Glorify their million-dollar ways

In the press and on the radio and TV—

      But won’t let me

      Skim even a dime—

I, black, come to my prime

In the section of the niggers

Where a nickel costs a dime.

Make a garland of Leontynes and Lenas

And hang it about your neck

      Like a lei.

Make a crown of Sammys, Sidneys, Harrys,

Plus Cassius Mohammed Ali Clay.

Put their laurels on your brow

      Today—

Then before you can walk

To the neighborhood corner,

Watch them droop, wilt, fade

      Away.

Though worn in glory on my head,

They do not last a day—

      Not one—

Nor take the place of meat or bread

Or rent that I must pay.

Great names for crowns and garlands!

      Yeah!

I love Ralph Bunche—

But I can’t eat him for lunch.

The old, the cautious, the over-wise—

Wisdom reduced to the personal equation:

Life is a system of half-truths and lies,

Opportunistic, convenient evasion.

      Elderly,

      Famous,

      Very well paid,

      They clutch at the egg

      Their master’s

      Goose laid:

      $$$$$

      $$$$

      $$$

      $$

      $

      •

Mister Backlash, Mister Backlash,

Just who do you think I am?

Tell me,
Mister
Backlash,

Who do you think I am?

You raise my taxes, freeze my wages,

Send my son to Vietnam.

You give me second-class houses,

Give me second-class schools,

Second-class houses

And second-class schools.

You must think us colored folks

Are second-class fools.

When I try to find a job

To earn a little cash,

Try to find myself a job

To earn a little cash,

All you got to offer

Is a white backlash.

But the world is big,

The world is big and round,

Great big world, Mister Backlash,

Big and bright and round—

And it’s full of folks like me who are

Black, Yellow, Beige, and Brown.

Mister Backlash, Mister Backlash,

What do you think I got to lose?

Tell me, Mister Backlash,

What you think I got to lose?

I’m gonna leave you, Mister Backlash,

Singing your mean old backlash blues.

               You’re
the
one,

               Yes, you’re
the
one

               
Will have the blues
.

Weaving

between assorted terrors

is the Jew

who owns the place—

one Jew,

fifty Negroes:

embroideries

(heirloomed

from ancient evenings)

tattered

in this neon

place.