The speaker of this poem is, as the title suggests, a mother speaking to her son. Unusually, the gender of the speaker is specified in the text; even more unusually, it’s clear that the speaker is external to the poet himself. While the woman of the poem is expressed to be a mother, it’s believed the character was inspired by Langston Hughes’ grandmother. The poem’s speech draws from the regional dialect known as African American Vernacular English. The character speaks from a place of hard-earned experience, having seen the hardships that minority identities face in comparison to those born into privilege. Rather than letting these experiences harden her, however, she encourages positivity and perseverance in her son, the object of the poem. Even though she’s faced challenges all her life, she’s still moving forward.