“OppressionNow dreamsAre not availableTo the dreamers,Nor songsTo the singers.In some landsDark nightAnd cold steelPrevail--But the dreamWill come back,And the songBreakIts jail.”

“America is a dream.The poet says it was promises.The people say it is promises—that will come true.The people do not always say things out loud,Nor write them down on paper.The people often holdGreat thoughts in their deepest heartsAnd sometimes only blunderingly express them,Haltingly and stumbling say them,And faultily put them into practice.The people do not always understand each other.But there is, somewhere there,Always the trying to understand,And the trying to say,"You are a man. Together we are building our land.”

“To some peopleLove is given,To othersOnly Heaven.”

“Bow down and pray in fear and trembling, go way back in the dark afraid; or work harder and harder; or stumble and learn; or raise up your fist and strike-but once the idea comes into your head you’ll never be the same again. Oh, test tube of life! Crucible of the South, find the right powder and you’ll never be the same again-the cotton will blaze and the cabins will burn and the chains will be broken and men, all of a sudden, will shakes hands, black men and white men, like steel meeting steel!”

“Sometimes a crumb fallsFrom the tables of joy, Sometimes a boneIs flung.To some peopleLove is given, To othersOnly heaven.”

“Rest at pale evening...A tall slim tree...Night coming tenderlyBlack like me”

“My old man's a white old manAnd my old mother's black.If ever I cursed my white old manI take my curses back.If ever I cursed my black old motherAnd wished she were in hell,I'm sorry for that evil wishAnd now i wish her wellMy old man died in a fine big houseMy Ma died in a shack.I wonder were i'm going to die,Being neither white nor black?”