black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro – and beautiful!

Langston Hughes

That Justice is a blind goddess Is a thing to which we black are wise: Her bandage hides two festering sores That once perhaps were eyes.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Black Eyes Hide Justice
Gather up In the arms of your love—Those who expect No love from above.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Expectation Love Yourself
I stay cool, and dig all jive, That’s the way I stay alive. My motto, as I live and learn, is Dig and be dug In return.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Alive Learning Myself Return Stay
Let America be America, where equality is in the air we breathe.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Breathe Country Equality
Everybody should take each other as they are, white, black, Indians, Creole. Then there would be no prejudice, nations would get along.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Care Different Each Other Ethnicity Nation Togetherness Unity
If the government can set aside some spot for a elk to be a elk without being bothered, or a buffalo to be a buffalo without being shot down, there ought to be some place where a Negro can be a Negro without being Jim Crowed.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Animal Be Yourself Equality Government Oppression Place Safety
Folks, I’m telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Born Death Hard Love Yourself
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Hard Time Life Myself Struggle
When you turn the corner And you run into yourself Then you know that you have turned All the corners that are left.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Corner Run Yourself
Misery is when you heard on the radio that the neighborhood you live in is a slum but you always thought it was home.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Home Live Misery Radio Thinking Yourself
Sometimes a crumb falls From the tables of joy, Sometimes a bone Is flung. To some people Love is given, To others Only heaven.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Heaven Love Time
I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Believe Creative Direction Politics Reaction Success Thinking Writing
The first of the month falls every month, too, North or South. And them white folks who sends bills never forgets to send them-the phone bill, the furniture bill, the water bill, the gas bill, insurance, house rent.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Fall Forget Home Insurance Phone
The past has been a mint Of blood and sorrow. That must not be True of tomorrow.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Blood Past Sorrow Tomorrow True
Gather quickly Out of darkness All the songs you know And throw them at the sun Before they melt Like snow.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Darkness Quick Snow Song Sun
I’m so tired of waiting, aren’t you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?
LANGSTON HUGHES

Beautiful Goodness Kind Myself Wait World

Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro – and beautiful!

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Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro – and beautiful!

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