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I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn't, So I jumped in and sank.

Langston Hughes

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Langston Hughes
Age: 66 †
Born: 1901
Born: February 1
Died: 1967
Died: May 22
Biographer
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Writer
Joplin
Missouri
James Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes
Bank
River
Rivers
Tried
Couldn
Went
Think
Sank
Thinking
Jumped

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I am a Negro: Black as the night is black, Black like the depths of my Africa.
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I will not take but for an answer.
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Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
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To some people Love is given, To others Only Heaven.
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So since I'm still here livin', I guess I will live on. I could've died for love-- But for livin' I was born.
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Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it ... what you wish in your secret heart were not funny, but it is, and you must laugh. Humor is your own unconscious therapy. Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air, and you.
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Because my mouth Is wide with laughter And my throat Is deep with song, You do not think I suffer after I have held my pain So long? Because my mouth Is wide with laughter You do not hear My inner cry? Because my feet Are gay with dancing You do not know I die?
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I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.
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There is no color line in death. I swear to the lord I still can't see Why Democracy means Everybody but me. O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath - America will be! I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.
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Americans of good-will, the nice decent church people, the well-meaning liberals, the good hearted souls who themselves wouldn't lynch anyone, must begin to realize that they have to be more than passively good-hearted, more than church goingly Christian, and much more than word-of-mouth in the liberalism.
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Frosting Freedom Is just frosting On somebody else's Cake-- And so must be Till we Learn how to Bake.
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Wear it Like a banner For the proud? Not like a shroud.
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I will not take 'but' for an answer. Negroes have been looking at democracy's 'but' too long.
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One of the great difficulties about being a member of a minority race is that so many kindhearted, well-meaning bores gather around to help.
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I look at my own body With eyes no longer blind- And I see that my own hands can make The world that's in my mind.
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Summer was made to give you a taste of what hell is like. Winter was made for landladies to charge high rents and keep cold radiators and make a fortune off of poor tenants.
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Everything there is but lovin' leaves a rust on your old soul
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As long as what is is-and Georgia is Georgia-I will take Harlem for mine. At least, if trouble comes, I will have my own window to shoot from.
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We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren?t it doesn?t matter.
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Words Like Freedom There are words like Freedom Sweet and wonderful to say. On my heartstrings freedom sings All day everyday. There are words like Liberty That almost make me cry. If you had known what I know You would know why.
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