THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS I've known rivers; I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow      of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went      down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn            all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient , dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like rivers.   MULATTO Because I am the white man's son--his own Bearing his bastard birth-mark on my face, I will dispute his title to my throne, Forever fight him for my rightful place There is a searing hate within my soul, A hate that only kin can feel for kin, A hate that makes me vigorous and whole, And spurs me on increasingly to win. Because I am my cruel father's child, My love of justice stirs me up to hate, A warring Ishmaelite, unreconciled, When falls the hour I shall not hesitate Into my father's heart to plunge the knife To gain the utmost freedom that is life.   JUKE BOX LOVE SONG I could take the Harlem night and wrap around you, Take the neon lights and make a crown, Take the Lenox Avenue busses, Taxis, subways, And for your love song tone their rumble down. Take Harlem's hearbeat, Make a drumbeat, Put it on a record, let it whirl, And while we listen to it play, Dance with you, till day-- Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.

I, TOO I, too sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes. But I laugh, And eat well And grow strong. To-morrow I'll sit at the table When company comes Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen" Then. Besides, they'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed,-- I, too, am America.   NEGRO I am a Negro:       Black as the night is black,       Black like the depths of my Africa. I've been a slave:      Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean.      I brushed the boots of Washington. I've been a worker:      Under my hands the pyramids arose.      I made mortar for the Woolworth Building. I've been a singer:      All the way from Africa to Georgia      I carried my sorrow songs.      I made ragtime. I've been a victim:      The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo.      They lynch me still in Mississippi. I am a Negro:      Black as the night is black,      Black like the depths of my Africa.

THEME FOR ENGLISH B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you-- Then, it will be true. I wonder if it's that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here to this college on the hill above Harlem. I am the only colored student in my class. The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem, through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas, Eight Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y, The Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator up to my room, sit down, and write this page: It's not easy to know what is true for you or me at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you: hear you, hear me--we two--you, me, talk on this page. (I hear New York, too.) Me--who? Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life. I like a pipe for a Christmas present, or records--Bessie, bop, or Bach. I guess being colored doesn't make me not like the same things other folks like who are other races. So will my page be colored that I write? Being me, it will not be white. But it will be a part of you, instructor. You are white-- yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. That's American. Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be part of me. Not do I often want to be a part of you. But we are, that's true! As I learn from you, I guess you learn from me-- although you're older--and white-- and somewhat more free. This is my page for English B.

MADAM'S CALLING CARDS I had some cards printed The other day. They cost me more Than I wanted to pay. I told the man I wasn't no mint, But I hankered to see My name in print. MADAM JOHNSON, ALBERTA K. He said, Your name looks good Madam'd that way. Shall I use Old English Or a Roman letter? I said, Use American. American's better. There's nothing foreign To my pedigree: Alberta K. Johnson-- American that's me.   MOTHER TO SON Well, son, I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, And splinters And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor-- Bare. But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin' landin's, And turnin' corners, And sometimes goin' in the dark Where there ain't been no light. So, boy, don't you turn back. Don't you set down on the steps 'Cause you find it's kinder hard. Don't you fall now-- For I'se still goin', honey, I'se still climbin', And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

MERRY-GO-ROUND Where is the Jim Crow section On this merry-go-round, Mister, cause I want to ride? Down South where I come from White and colored Can't sit side by side. Down South on the train There's a Jim Crow car. On the bus we're put in the back-- But there ain't no back To a merry-go-round! Where's the horse For a kid that's black?   HARLEM What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?   ENNUI It's such a Bore Being always Poor.

HARLEM SWEETIES Have you dug the spill Of Sugar Hill? Cast your gims On this sepia thrill: Brown sugar lassie, Caramel treat, Honey-gold baby Sweet enough to eat. Peach-skinned girlie, Coffee and cream, Chocolate darling Out of a dream. Walnut tinted Or cocoa brown, Pomegranate-lipped Pride of the town. Rich cream-colored To plum-tinted black, Feminine sweetness In Harlem's no lack. Glow of the quince To blush of the rose. Persimmon bronze To cinnamon toes. Blackberry cordial, Virginia Dare wine-- All those sweet colors Flavor Harlem of mine! Walnut or cocoa, Let me repeat: Caramel, brown sugar, A chocolate treat. Molasses taffy, Coffee and cream, Licorice, clove, cinnamon To a honey-brown dream. Ginger, wine-gold, Persimmon, blackberry, All through the spectrum Harlem girls vary-- So if you want to know beauty's Rainbow-sweet thrill, Stroll down luscious, Delicious, fine Sugar Hill.

LET AMERICA BE AMERICA AGAIN 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 young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one's own greed! I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil, I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, worried, 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 that 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? A dream-- Still beckoning to me! 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 out might dream again. Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-- The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America! O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath-- America will be! An ever-living seed, Its dream Lies deep in the heart of me. We, the people, must redeem Our land, the mines, the plants, the rivers, The mountains and the endless plain-- All, all the stretch of these great green states-- And make America again!

CULTURAL EXCHANGE In the In the Quarter In the Quarter of the Negroes Where the doors are doors of paper Dust of dingy atoms Blows a scratchy sound. Amorphous jack-o'-lanterns caper and the wind won't wait for midnight For fun to blow doors down. By the river and the railroad With fluid far-off going Boundaries bind unbinding A whirl of whistles blowing. No trains or steamboats going-- Yet Leontyne's unpacking. In the Quarter of the Negroes Where the doorknob lets in Lieder More than German every bore, Her yesterday past grandpa-- Not of her own doing-- In a pot of collard greens Is gently stewing. In the pot behind the paper doors on the old coal stove What's cooking? What's smelling, Leontyne? Lieder, lovely Lieder And a leaf of collard green, Lovely Lieder Leontyne. But they asked me right at Christmas if my blackness, would it rub off? I said, ask your mama. Dreams and nightmares . . . Nightmares . . . Dreams! Oh! Dreaming that the Negroes Of the South have taken over-- Voted all the Dixiecrats Right out of power-- Comes the COLORED HOUR: Martin Luther King is Governor of Georgia, Dr. Rufus Clement is his Chief Advisor, Zelma Watson George the High Grand Worthy. In white pillared mansions Sitting on their wide verandas, Wealthy Negroes have white servants, White sharecroppers work the black plantations, And colored children have white mammies:      Mammy Faubus      Mammy Eastland      Mammy Talmadge      Mammy Wallace.

Dear, dear darling old white mammies-- Sometimes even buried with our family!      Dear old      Mammy Faubus! Culture, they say, is a two-way street: Hand me my mint julep, mammy.      Hurry up!      Make haste!  BIRMINGHAM SUNDAY (September 15, 1963) Four little girls Who went to Sunday School that day And never came back home at all--      But left instead      Their blood upon the wall      With spattered flesh      And bloodied Sunday dresses      Scorched by dynamite that      China made aeons ago      Did not know what China made      Before China was ever Red at all      Would ever redden with their blood      This Birmingham-on-Sunday wall. Four tiny little girls Who left their blood upon that wall, In little graves today await:      The dynamite that might ignite      The ancient fuse of Dragon Kings      Whose tomorrow sings a hymn      The missionaries never taught      In Christian Sunday School      To implement the Golden Rule. Four little girls Might be awakened someday soon By songs upon the breeze      As yet unfelt among      Magnolia trees. SONG FOR A DARK GIRL Way Down South in Dixie    (Break the heart of me) They hung my black young lover    To a cross roads tree. Way Down South in Dixie    (Bruised body high in air) I asked the white Lord Jesus    What was the use of prayer. Way Down South in Dixie    (Break the heart of me) Love is a naked shadow    On a gnarled and naked tree.