Langston Hughes was born into an America still struggling to accept black people as equals. Racism and segregation were very strong in the early to mid 1900's. As a black person in a country dominated by whites, Hughes experienced many social injustices during his life. Rather than developing feelings of shame and hatred, he embraced these experiences and took great pride in his black heritage. He wrote the poem "I, Too- hoping to instill in his fellow black Americans the dream of a future in which all races would be treated equally. .
In the poem "I, Too,"" Hughes opens with "I, too, sing America."" This phrase states that although he is black, he is also an American. In the poem, he is sent to the kitchen to eat when there are visitors coming to the house. Most black people during this time were not afforded the advantages and privileges of white people. But the black man in the poem just laughs and becomes stronger. He knows that in the future he will have rights. Then no one will be able to tell him where to eat. No one will be able to deny him the opportunities given to white people. They will see how beautiful he is and be ashamed of the way they had treated him in the past. They will look beyond the color of his skin and see the person he is inside.
Hughes lived during a time when black people could be killed while law enforcement would look the other way. When growing up in Joplin, Missouri, a white mob stormed the city jail and lynched a black man who had been arrested for the murder of a white policeman. The mob then burned the houses of black families. His writings reflect his first hand experiences of the hardship and oppression which black people faced for many years. By using the first-person point of view in these poems, Hughes is representing all the black people who do not have the courage to speak and act for themselves. Darryl Pinckney supports this idea in his writing of "Black Identity in Langston Hughes.
