

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!
—Langston Hughes