by darth frosty 33 Replies latest jw friends
Oh yeah, Langston Hughes wrote this song, very haunting, but so real. I kind of seen myself in it at times. Especially at judicial meetings. That lonely day when I walked all by myself,
my friends was right there with me, but was just as if they left.
insot4
Thanks for posting the Langston Hughes, I have always been curious about him, but never got around to reading much by him.
It reminds me of my brief association with the southern Baptists, shortly before becoming a dubbie. I attended because my two best friends did, and one summer, I was about ten or eleven, I went to Baptist camp. It cost my parents fifteen dollars in 1965, it was great fun, swimming, crafts, campfires. But also, every night, church. I didn't mind too much, but when they asked for people to be saved, I didn't think it applied to me, I thought you needed some magical invitation from God and I didn't feel that. My parents weren't even Baptists, so it's not like I had any expectation from them. One night a counselor came to me and said that I shouldn't feel any pressure to get saved, it was entirely up to me. I was surprised because until that moment I hadn't felt any pressure. So that made me feel like there was something wrong with me, that I was letting God and these people down by not getting saved. So I walked the walk, and still I didn't feel anything. I questioned whether I was saved or not, could walking down the aisle of a church really save me? Why did everyone but me else get some magical good feeling? I assumed there was something wrong with me. I never got baptized or joined the Baptists.
I think that was one reason I was vulnerable for the JWs, they didn't promise any magical feelings, it was all about do this or get burned at Armageddon, but at least I understood that.
Originally published in Esquire and in the International Worker Order pamphlet A New Song (1938)
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, 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 shot down when we strike? 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 that's almost dead 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.
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!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The 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!
