James Langston Hughes

I got the Weary Blues And I can't be satisfied.

I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in Human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Quick, sunrise, come! Sunrise out of Africa, Quick, come!

It is the duty of the younger Negro artist . . . to change through the force of his art that old whispering "I want to be white," hidden in the aspirations of his people, to "Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!"

Melting pot Harlem - Harlem of honey and chocolate and caramel and rum and vinegar and lemon and lime and gall . . . where the subway from the Bronx keeps right on downtown.

Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die, Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.

I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.

Negro blood is sure powerful - because just one drop of black blood makes a colored man. One drop - you are a Negro! . . . Black is powerful.