# I, Too, Sing America analysis

I, Too, Sing America — Langston Hughes (1926)

This analysis follows Hughes’s speaker from enforced exclusion toward an undeniable claim on America.

Full text from [I, Too](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47558/i-too). Public domain in the US (First published in The Weary Blues in 1926, before the US public-domain cutoff.).

## Summary

The speaker calls himself America’s “darker brother,” describes being sent to the kitchen, and predicts a place at the table.[2]

```
I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
```

The ending changes a song into a national identity: “I, too, am America.”[2]

## Meaning and interpretation

The poem treats belonging as a fact racism can deny socially but cannot erase. “Too” expands the authorized national voice.[2]

```
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
```

The kitchen and table make segregation physically visible, while “tomorrow” promises equality as a change in social order.[2]

## Themes

### American belonging

Repeated first-person claims make Black identity part of the national voice.

### Segregation and equality

The kitchen represents enforced separation; the table represents shared citizenship.

### Strength and self-respect

The speaker laughs, eats well, and grows strong while excluded.

## Form and meter

The poem uses short free-verse lines and uneven units rather than a fixed meter or rhyme scheme.[3]

Repetition, pauses, and the return of “When company comes” organize the speech; the ending alters the opening from singing America to being America.[2]

## Literary devices

### Allusion

```
I, too, sing America.
```

The opening answers Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” by adding a voice that exclusion hides.[2]

### Extended metaphor

```
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
```

A household dining arrangement becomes an image of national segregation.

### Repetition

```
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
```

The recurring phrase frames a changed future.

## Historical context

Hughes published “I, Too” in The Weary Blues in 1926, during the Harlem Renaissance.[2]

Benjamin Voigt describes the poem as a reckoning with Whitman and an imaginative claim to an equal place at the table.[2]

## What critics say

> ““I, Too” repurposes Whitman’s demotic language and democratic I to do what Whitman could not: imagine a truly equal place at the table for “the darker brother.””
>
> — [Poetry Foundation](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/88972/langston-hughes-101)

> “I, Too, Sing America is a declaration of belonging by an African American speaker”
>
> — [American Literature](https://americanliterature.com/author/langston-hughes/poem/i-too-sing-america)

## Common questions

### What is the poem’s meaning?

It asserts that Black Americans belong fully to the nation despite racist exclusion.

### What does the kitchen symbolize?

The kitchen symbolizes segregation and enforced invisibility; the table symbolizes equality.

### What form does it use?

Short, conversational free verse organized by repetition, pauses, and tense shifts.

## References

- [Poetry Foundation](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47558/i-too)

- [Poetry Foundation](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/88972/langston-hughes-101)

- [LitCharts](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/langston-hughes/i-too)

- [American Literature](https://americanliterature.com/author/langston-hughes/poem/i-too-sing-america)

## Open the editor

Write with this poem’s open form in the editor: https://lyriic.com/write