The version of this poem used to created this study guide appears in: Hughes, Langston and Rampersad, Arnold (Ed.). The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Random House, 1995.

Note that parenthetical citations within the guide refer to the lines of the poem from which the quotations are taken.

“I, Too” by Langston Hughes was originally published in a 1925 special issue of the magazine Survey Graphic titled Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro. The poem was republished in Hughes’s 1926 poetry collection The Weary Blues. The poem would become paradigmatic of the Harlem Renaissance, a period in the 1920s and 1930s when African Americans were creating and gaining recognition for poetry, music, and visual art concerned with building cultural identity. It remains a commonly studied poem for the complex ways it treats issues of racial identity, social exclusion, and American literary history.

The poem begins with the speaker stating that he also sings American, presumably in response to someone or something. He then explains that he is the “darker brother” who is not allowed to sit at the table when company comes (2). Even so, he remains confident, growing strong and eating food in preparation for the future. He then projects into that future time when he will be able to sit at the table, and the others will consider him beautiful. The speaker concludes by stating that he not only sings America, but that he is America.