black
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For poems are like rainbows; they escape you quickly.

Langston Hughes

Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Death Life Live Music Note
Teach us all to do right, Lord, please, and to get along together with that atom bomb on this earth because I do not want it to fall on me-nor Thee-nor anybody living. Amen!
LANGSTON HUGHES

Earth God Live Right Teaching Togetherness
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
We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Beginning Black Live Oppression Ourselves Poet Writing
A picture, to be an interesting picture, must be more than a picture, otherwise it is only a reproduction of an object, and not an object of value in itself.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Interest Object Photograph Reproduction Value
Love is a naked shadow, On a gnarled and naked tree.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Love Naked Shadow Tree Yourself
Good morning, Revolution: You’re the very best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Best Friendship Morning Myself Togetherness
But there are certain very practical things American Negro writers can do. And must do. There’s a song that says, “the time ain’t long.” That song is right. Something has got to change in America-and change soon. We must help that change to come.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Change Difference Help Practical Time Transformation Writing
Pleasured equally In seeking as in finding, Each detail minding, Old Walt went seeking And finding.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Detail Happiness Pleasure Search Seek
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
The only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you’ll finish it.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Finish Start Way Yourself
Peace We passed their graves: The dead men there, Winners or losers, Did not care. In the dark They could not see Who had gained The victory.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Death Grave Man Peace Victory
Reach Up Your Hand… and take a star.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Hands Reach Star
I don’t dare start thinking in the morning. I don’t dare start thinking in the morning. If I thought thoughts in bed, Them thoughts would bust my head– So I don’t dare start thinking in the morning.
LANGSTON HUGHES

Dare Morning Myself Start Thinking
Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro – and beautiful!
LANGSTON HUGHES

Acceptance Beautiful Black Myself Self Love White
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

For poems are like rainbows; they escape you quickly.

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For poems are like rainbows; they escape you quickly.

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Popular Authors

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