Skip to content

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

— Langston Hughes

Another quote →

Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: "I, Too", in the magazine Survey Graphic (March 1925); reprinted in Selected Poems (1959); it is also often referred to as "I, Too, Sing America"
Source quality: Source identified Names the work or year, but without an exact location.

More by Langston Hughes

Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)

I swear to the Lord
I still can't see
Why Democracy means
Everybody but me.

A certain amount
of nothing
in a dream deferred.

Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)

While over Alabama earth
These words are gently spoken:
Serve — and hate will die unborn.
Love — and chains are broken.

There’s a certain
amount of traveling
in a dream deferred.

Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)

You talk like they
don’t kick dreams
around downtown.

Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let America Be America Again (1935)

You are white —
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.

Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)

All Langston Hughes quotes →

Topics

More quotes by Langston Hughes

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

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.

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.

The night is beautiful,
So are the faces of my people.

Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.

All Langston Hughes quotes →

You may also like

Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama Words Of Wisdom: Selected Quotes by His Holiness the Dalai Lama (2001)

The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

If there are sound reasons or bases for the points you demand, then there is no need for violence.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama The Dalai Lama: A Policy of Kindness (1990)

The hand of the aggressor is stayed by strength — and strength alone.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Langston Hughes (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.