Langston Hughes

"Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, the stealth, the 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."

Poet, novelist, playwright, Langston Hughes was among the first to write about the black American experience during the Harlem renaissance of the 1920s. Hughes challenged generations of Americans with his innovative writing and political musings.