A Poem for Veteran's Day

Looky here, America
What you done done?
Let things drift
Until the riots come.

Now your policemen
Let your mobs run free
I reckon you don’t care
Nothing about me.

You tell me that hitler
Is a mighty bad man.
I guess he took lessons
from the ku klux klan

You tell me mussolini’s

Got an evil heart.
Well, it mus-a been in Beaumont
That he had his start—
 
Cause everything that hitler
And mussolini do,
Negroes get the same
Treatment from you

You jim crowed me
Before hitler rose to power—
And you’re STILL jim crowing me
Right now, this very hour.

Yet you say we’re fighting
For democracy.
Then why don’t democracy
Include me?

I ask you this question
Cause I want to know
How long I got to fight
BOTH HITLER—AND JIM CROW. 

- Langston Hughes, Beaumont to Detroit: 1943