I, Too, Sing America

I, Too, Sing America

by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be 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
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.


While the assignment this week was to reflect on the major influences that shape schools in urban centers, I thought that I’d begin with this Langston Hughes poem as I feel that the themes central to the birth of the urban schools are reflective in the poem, and in general, in the lives of lower-income nonwhites, in particular African Americans, Latinos, and indigenous Americans. One of these central themes is exclusion. As in Fruchter’s book, Urban Schools Public Will whether it takes the form of segregation, suburban growth, or globalization, exclusion is a central influence in the shaping of the urban center and its schools. There can be no argument that prior to Brown, nonwhites (or more correctly non-WASPs) were excluded from many walks of life. We are all familiar with the photographs of the restaurants that excluded “coloreds,” as well as the stories of separate drinking fountains for whites and nonwhites. Less familiar --but just as important-- are the hotels, businesses, and clubs that were “restricted” — a term that referred to those organizations that restricted Jews from entrance.

While this exclusion became illegal in schools after Brown, it spurred on resistance from the dominant majority, or as Fruchter decides: the white majority. While one cannot refute that there was resistance in the south which in turn signaled the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, I remain unconvinced that this struggle was as simple as Fruchter paints it. I wonder if it was in fact some subset of white culture — in particular WASPs— that resisted. I digress.

Fruchter further argues that Brown helped contribute to suburban growth. While unfounded fear of African Americans is evident in both Fruchter’s vignette of life in Camden, as well as in documents from the era (cf. Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun), I question his claim that Brown’s inclusion of nonwhites in “white” schools was responsible for the exodus of middle-class and working-class families from the cities and into the suburbs during the 1950s and 60s.

Whatever the origins of this flight, there can be no doubt that by abandoning the urban centers for the greener pastures offered by suburbia (in accordance with the construction of highways and roads that separated the suburbs from the city, both literally and economically), has had a grave impact on the development of the urban centers and those schools that are found within. In this case, exclusion has lead to a diminishing of local funding for education. The results are obvious: Lacking the funds for proper education, schools and facilities within the urban centers will erode and fall into squalor; lacking these funds and the facilities in which to teach, students will not be prepared with the tools necessary to succeed in the modern world; lacking these tools, they and their progeny will not reach a higher-income level and be able to better themselves. In effect, this exclusion has created a serfdom composed mostly of African Americans, Latinos, and immigrants.

And it gets worse. In the more recent world, Fruchter argues that globalization continues what Brown and suburban growth began in the 1950s. In truth, globalization is but the newest incarnation of exclusion in the twenty-first century. With the departure of different industries (whether they be in manufacturing or labor) either overseas or to suburbia, there should be no surprise that low-income areas whose constituents have been abandoned by commerce, by industry, by most of society, and who have no legal prospects by which to better themselves have become easy targets for crime and vice.

Thus, from this crucible of exclusion comes the creation of schools in America’s urban centers. They are poor, crime-ridden areas that seem permanently broken, and not at all to their own fault. This undeniable situation begs poignant questions: When will tomorrow come; when will America’s darker brothers will be welcome at the table; when will they be seen as beautiful? When will they, too, be America?