"Give Us Our Peace"
Langston Hughes

Give us a peace equal to the war
Or else our souls will be unsatisfied,
And we will wonder what we have fought for
And why the many died.

Give us a peace accepting every challenge -
The challenge of the poor, the black, of all
denied,
The challenge of the vast colonial world
That long has had so little justice by its side.

Give us a peace that dares us to be wise
Give us a peace that dares us to be strong
Give us a peace that dares us still uphold
Throughout the peace our battle against
wrong.

Give us a peace that is not cheaply used,
A peace that is no clever scheme,
A people’s peace for which (we) can
enthuse,
A peace that brings reality to our dream.

Give us a peace that will produce great
schools --
As the war produced great armament,
A peace that will wipe out our slums ---
As war wiped out our foes on evil bent.

Give us a peace that will enlist
A mighty army serving humankind,
Not just an army geared to kill,
But trained to help the living mind,
An army trained to shape our common good
And bring about a world of brotherhood.

"Let America be America again."
Langston Hughes

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.")
...

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.
...

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!

{re: i've been accused of being cynical}