Langston Hughes

I, Too

Whitman's opening line

Direct echo of Walt Whitman's 'I Hear America Singing' (1860), which celebrated workers but ignored Black Americans. Hughes inserts himself into Whitman's vision.

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen

Domestic segregation

Not lunch counters or buses—the family table. Hughes shows how Jim Crow segregation happened inside white homes, with Black servants hidden when guests arrived.

When company comes,
But I laugh,

Physical transformation

The speaker doesn't argue or plead. He eats, builds strength, waits. The body itself becomes resistance—notice the active verbs: laugh, eat, grow.

And eat well,
And grow strong.

Physical transformation

The speaker doesn't argue or plead. He eats, builds strength, waits. The body itself becomes resistance—notice the active verbs: laugh, eat, grow.

Tomorrow,
I’ll sit at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am

Reversal of shame

The poem's turn: shame belongs to those who excluded, not those excluded. 'Beautiful' claims dignity without asking permission.

And be ashamed,—
I, too, am America.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Talking Back to Whitman

Hughes published this in 1926, but he's answering a poem from 1860. Walt Whitman's 'I Hear America Singing' catalogued American workers—mechanics, carpenters, masons—celebrating their labor. But Whitman's America had no Black voices. Hughes doesn't reject Whitman; he corrects him with that crucial word: 'too.'

CONTEXT Hughes wrote this during the Harlem Renaissance, when Black artists were redefining American culture. But he was also working as a busboy and had experienced exactly this kind of segregation—being told to stay out of sight when white guests were present.

The poem's structure mirrors its argument. It opens and closes with nearly identical lines, 'I, too, sing America' becoming 'I, too, am America.' That shift from *singing* to *being* is the whole poem's work—moving from claiming a voice to claiming existence itself.

The Strategy of Waiting

Notice what the speaker doesn't do: doesn't beg, doesn't argue his case, doesn't appeal to conscience. He laughs. That laugh is crucial—it's not submission, it's confidence. He knows something they don't know yet.

The word 'Tomorrow' carries the poem's threat and promise. Not someday, not eventually—tomorrow. The timeline is definite. Meanwhile, he's in the kitchen eating well and growing strong. The body matters here. Physical strength, physical presence, physical beauty—these aren't metaphors. Hughes makes the speaker's body the site of transformation and power.

'Nobody'll dare'—that's the poem's only moment of confrontation, and it's about their fear, not his anger. By the final stanza, they'll see his beauty and 'be ashamed.' Hughes reverses the shame. The excluded person isn't the one who should feel shame; the excluders are. And that shame comes not from moral argument but from recognition—they'll finally *see* what was there all along.