Ferguson, Missouri, USA

Faith Rally
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)


Tactical officers fire tear gas in Ferguson
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
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(It never was America to me.)
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O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
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(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
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Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? 
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
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I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
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I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Violence again in Ferguson
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
Tear gas Fired in Ferguson
The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
Tear gas shot at protesters
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Police Fire Tear Gas, Clear Streets in Ferguson
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

(The words above are from "Let America Be America Again" by Langston Hughes, born in Joplin, Missouri. The pictures  are ones I saw last night on Twitter that particularly stuck with me; a few I discovered this morning. Most were uncredited on Twitter. The ones I do know come from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and are by J.B. Forbes, David Carson, and Robert Cohen.)

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