Let Americans be Americans Again

The problems plaguing America are caused by and can be cured by Americans becoming Americans again in the truest and best sense to the word. Americans have either abandoned or forgotten five foundational ideals that at times made them listen to the better angels of their nature and strive to make their country what it was meant and ought to be. This poem is inspired by the classic by Langston Hughes and it shares that poems view that many people have come to America with hopes and dreams and they and many others are being let down. This stems from the great economic disparity between people which is built into the system. Essentially the rich get ever richer, and the poor get ever  poorer. This is allowed because too many of us lack real, sustained commitment to equality, democracy. inherent rights, shared opportunity and authentic liberty for all.

If America is to fulfill its promise and be true to its premise, Americans must rediscover and revive their devotion to these ideals.


Let Americans be Americans again.
Let them dream once more the dream that made us see.
Let true patriots arise and renew America’s claim
To being the home of the brave and the land of the free

Let Americans recall the Framers’ aims—
Let them build that bountiful land we swear to love
Where neither tyrants ploys nor traitors games
Force anyone to bow to those above.

Let Americans stand for a true land of Liberty
One unscarred by false pride or jealous greed,
Where the air is redolent of the scent of true Equality,
And Opportunity proliferates to answer every need.

Let us reclaim the poorer Whites, incited, fooled and driven wild,
And welcome the Reds from whom far too much has been seized.
And embrace the Blacks still scarred from being slavery’s child
And accept the Yellows once into interment wrongly squeezed.

Welcome the immigrants clutching fast to hope in desperate need—
Fighting bravely against the same callous, vicious plan
Of hate, fear, spite and power crushing all with rapacious greed.
While seeking to make this country their new and promised land.

Let Americans look to the youth, all full of courage, hope, and daring-do
And keep them safe from that vast, far reaching web of vile shams
Of propaganda, plots and profiteering gain, of malice through and through!
Of broken promises and devious tales promoting nefarious scams

Let Americans demand an end to drive the workers and steal their pay!
Of everything for one’s own lust and none for any other’s need
Let them rally the farmer so dependent on the soil and weather's whim each day.
And enlist the worker enthralled in the corporation’s strangling greed.

Let all Americans dream again the storied dreams.
That hard work, skill and ingenuity can lift them to new heights
That today’s struggle presages the dawn more abundant means.
Let us, though embattled even now, secure to all their Rights.

O, Patriots! You are they who never bowed in the face of woe and fears,
You are they who bravely raised the banner of the hallowed ideals
And battled on while battered and disrespected all these many years.
You alone  never forgot how devotion to the best within us feels.

While dreaming a dream so bright, so right, so true,
It shown through all the stone, concrete and steel,
So forever more its mighty clarion rings forth anew
To make Americans strive to be what they must now become for real.

Americans are children of those who crossed the storm tossed sea
All descendants of travelers from obscure and ominous climes,
Who searched for what might and ought to be
Braving the waves in different ships at different times,

Americans no matter the strand from which their families came
Hope against hope to make themselves and their posterity free.
Can rightly claim American as their honored name
And make America everything to everyone that it might and ought to be.

Let Americans once again recall all the evils we have fought and felled
And sing again all the songs we so long have sung
And hope again all the soaring hopes we have so well and truly held
And lift again all the brave banners that we decades ago had hung,

Though millions now have lost so much almost nothing is left to lose—
Though many are yet striving the cherished name to win
We vow the dream has never died and will not die while we dare to rightly choose!
O’ let Americans be Americans again

We, the people, who have as yet almost never been
Must now see, the land we have is the land we make
And despite the odds, rise and insist Americans be Americans again.
Through the truths we tell and the risks we take

We must recall the meaning of ideals we once so cherished
And as Americans boldly and solemnly true Democracy reclaim
Our principles, purposes, and promises before they have perished
We must again lift our national vision and focus on the highest plain.

Americans: Female, Male, Brown, Red, Yellow, Black and White
All need to focus on the who, what, where, why and when
And, come together to awaken and renew the glorious fight
That as Americans we resolutely unite and truly are Americans once again!