P7 | APUSH |Wiley |Overview of the 1920s, D___ Name:

The 1920s: Beyond the Glitter: An Era of Transition & Tension

As you saw in the “Beyond the Glitter” documentary, 1920s America is more nuanced than its “party decade” image. This packet will help us to explore how the 1920s was largely an era of transition and tension among various groups.

The stereotypical views of the 1920s are that it was roaring economically and replete with parties and jazz. Of course, these stereotypes are only partly true. Yes, the first half of the decade saw a roaring economy for some Americans – lots of production, demand, consumer spending, and growth in the stock market. Yes, there were lots of new dances, like the Charleston and Swing dance. Yes, there was lots of illegal drinking. It’s true that jazz came into its own, its origins being Ragtime of the Gilded and Progressive Eras. African Americans were at the center of this jazz movement, particularly in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance, where African Americans consciously created a new distinctive black American art and literary scene. They used their disillusionment and anger with the status quo to create a thriving urban center for educated and artistic blacks, who pointed out hypocrisies in American life (see Hughes’ poem on p. 10) and paid homage to the highs and lows of black life in America.

But to generalize the era as one with a roaring economy and lots of parties and jazz misses a lot of substance from the era. For one, the economy slowed down by 1925; looking back today, it’s relatively easy to see that the economy was headed for disaster, with 40% of Americans living in the poverty range. And there were significant upswings in nativism, racism, and denials of due process, as well as heightened tensions amongst labor-capital and urban-rural groups that divided the citizenry.

Great changes had taken place in American society as a result of the Great War (1914-’18; Treaty of Versailles, 1919): Female suffrage (19th Amendment, 1920) The Great Migration (400,000 Southern blacks migrated North) The Red Scare (1917-’25)

These changes highlight a trend in 1920s America: a society in transition, which created great tension. Mass, consumer culture was dramatically changing (cars; radio; labor saving devices, like washing machines and toasters;

movies)o Mass culture is the set of ideas and values that develop from a common exposure to the same media, news

sources, music, art, etc. There were urban-rural divides, conservative-liberal divides, and religious fundamentalist-modern science divides among

citizens: o Sobriety vs. illegal liquoro Conservative beliefs regarding women vs. 19th Amendment + flapperism + birth controlo Thrift vs. consumerism o Religion vs. science (evolution)

Black soldiers returning home racial violence and an upswing in racism and the KKK More “undesirable” immigrants were coming into the country nativism immigration quotas and eugenics policies Republican party transitioned away from progressivism and back to their Gilded Age platform Labor-capital relationship further strained over fear of Bolshevism and pro-business government policies

Overview of Political Trends: “return to normalcy”; conservatism; big business boomed but farmers and unions struggled With progressivism out (TR died in 1919 and the war disillusioned activists), “old-guard,” pro-big business conservatives

(think Gilded Age) returned to power in both the Congress and Executive branches Economic policy pursued by politicians was pro-business (see below)

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Overview of Economic Trends: Decade saw a lengthy period of business prosperity but

ended in economic disaster by 1929 Political leaders (mostly Republican) failed to enforce

Progressive Era antitrust legislation and gave tax cuts to big business

Standard of living for most Americans improved; indoor plumbing and heating became commonplace

Yet approximately 40% of rural and urban Americans had incomes in the poverty range

The Federal Reserve, an independent government institution created during the Progressive Era to help stabilize the economy, contributed to the “booming” economy with low interest rates and relaxed regulations of banks, but their policies would help usher in the Great Depression

Very few policymakers or economists at the time saw how the 1920s economy and 1920s economic policy would lead to depression

Mass/consumer culture (see below) contributed to a booming economy during the 1st half of the ‘20s

Overview of Consumerism: Car, movies, radio, infant airline, vacuum cleaners, toasters,

refrigerators became more commonplaceo By 1929 50% of American families owned car o Be careful not to exaggerate the consumerism of the time: in 1930, 75% of American homes didn’t have a washing

machine, and only 40% of them had a radio Widespread use of credit and installment plans (buy now on credit and

pay back later + interest); great in the short-run, but contributed to disaster in the long-run

Growth of Hollywood and concept of “celebrities”

Prior to the 1920s, Americans often considered themselves blessed because of their history, thrift, and hard-working nature. But the advent of large-scale production in the ‘20s led many Americans to shed their frugality and engage in what seemed like limitless consumption of “new-fangled” items. Older generations didn’t like this new sense of consumerism. This sense of generational divide over thrift vs. consumerism is well reflected in this political cartoon pictured here, which casts the younger generation as spoiled, undisciplined, greedy, and materialistic.

1. Based on the information presented here, what are the most overlooked elements of the 1920s? Why should they get more attention? (Discuss several)

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The 1920s Woman

Though the women who had pushed so hard for the 19th Amendment (1920) had wanted women to keep pushing for more rights in the aftermath of the Great War, many young women of the age just wanted to…have fun. Enter the “Flappers.” Flappers gained a reputation for keeping their hair and skirts short, smoking and drinking illegally in public and using birth control to engage in more promiscuous behavior. But flappers were very much a minority in America. They were northern, urban, single, young, middle-class women, many of whom had jobs in the changing American economy as phone operators or department store workers. By night, they often engaged in the active city nightlife, frequenting jazz clubs, theaters, and speakeasies. These women of the ‘20s adopted the same carefree attitude toward Prohibition as men. Ironically, more young women consumed alcohol in the decade when it was illegal than ever before. Smoking, another activity previously reserved for men, became popular among flappers. With the political field now leveled with the 19th Amendment, some women sought to eliminate social double standards. Consequently, the flapper was less hesitant to experiment sexually than previous generations.

Many women celebrated the age of the flapper, with its experimentation with new looks, jobs, and lifestyles that seemed liberating compared to the “silent woman” of the Victorian Age. But critics were quick to elucidate the shortcomings of “flapperism,” as it was sometimes called: most women were still expected to marry, have children, and be the ones to work the new washing machines. And flappers failed to push for greater legal and political rights, something the previous generation of women was disheartened by.

Those women of the previous generation—not the flappers—moved quickly after ratification of the 19th Amendment to gain support for another amendment they hoped to add to the Constitution—the Equal Rights Amendment, or ERA for short. It read, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Female political activists tried to get it passed for decades; the fight was still going strong in the 1960s and early ‘70s. To those that supported the amendment, it was viewed as the only way to eliminate all legal gender-based discrimination in the U.S.

Surprisingly, conservative women often led the most visible opposition to the amendment. These women believed one of two things: 1) that the ERA would eliminate laws designed to protect women—such as shorter working hours or the all-male draft. Or, 2) that the ERA would lead to the complete unraveling of traditional American society. Though the U.S. House eventually approved the amendment in 1970 and the Senate in 1972, it was never passed by the requisite states. While some states debated the amendment, “Stop-ERA” advocates baked pies for legislatures and hung “Don’t draft me” signs on baby girls for public display. The strategy worked.

2. If you had been a young woman of the 1920s living in urban America, do you suspect you would have been a flapper, or a political activist pushing for the ERA? Explain.

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An Age of Paranoia/Intolerance

Palmer Raids

Fear over Bolshevism led to the Red Scare (1917-’25) and thousands of arrests and deportations during the Palmer Raids. Though unions and strikers had made serious gains during the Progressive Era, these were wiped out during the ‘20s due to the stigmatization of workers that followed the Russian Revolution. Conservative Americans believed that labor activism was a menace to American society and must be squelched so as to avoid Bolshevism in America. The hatchet-man against American radicals was Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer (pictured below Palmer), who conducted a series of raids on individuals he believed were dangerous to American security. With Palmer's sponsorship, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was created under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover (pictured bottom right). In January of 1920, federal agents broke into homes without search warrants, jailed labor leaders, deported Russian immigrants without just cause, and held about 5,000 citizens without respecting their right to legal counsel. Palmer felt that American civil liberties were less important than rooting out potential wrongdoers. Some of the detainees were released; some were deported.

The climate set by Palmer and J. Edgar Hoover could not be contained. The American public attacked so-called radicals (labor organizers, socialists, anarchists) and expelled Socialist representatives from their state legislatures. Twenty-eight states banned the public display of red flags, since red has long been associated with communism (meant to represent the blood of the workers who died in the struggle against capitalism). It seemed as though the witch hunt would never end. But more Americans started speaking out about restrictions of civil liberties, and the scare came to an end around 1925.

3. What were the Palmer Raids? Do you think you would have supported the raids if you had worked for the U.S. government in the 1920s?

Nativism (see more about immigration restrictions in your Beyond the Glitter document)

Nativism has been a problem in the U.S. since the Irish started migrating to America in the first half of the 19 th century. We saw it get worse during the Gilded and Progressive Eras, when more Southern and Eastern Europeans, including many Catholics and Jews, came to the country. During the ‘20s, it got a whole lot worse due to more pseudo-science claiming that whites were biologically superior to other groups. Immigration quotas were enacted in such a way as to limit “undesirable” immigrants. The quotas for Southern and Eastern Europe were drastically reduced and Asians were forbidden (with one small exception for a small number of Filipinos). President Coolidge, when signing the 1924 immigration law, said “America must be kept American.”

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Eugenics

Eugenics is the set of beliefs and practices that aim at improving the genetic quality of a human population. When we hear eugenics, we usually think of Nazism and the WWII context. Hitler is on record many times praising the American “pioneers” of eugenics, which had become popular during the Progressive Era and into the ‘20s, as a result of new immigrants deemed “lesser” (Eastern/Southern Europeans, Catholics, Jews); Hitler said, “I have studied with interest the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny (offspring) would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock.”

American eugenics examples: Indiana was the first state to enact sterilization legislation (1907); 30 others followed Was first challenged in 1927; the Supreme Court ruled that forced sterilizations of the mentally disabled were legitimate States that had sterilizations policies usually sterilized certain kinds of criminals and those with low IQs A 1937 Fortune poll found that 2/3 of respondents supported eugenic sterilization of “mental defective,” 63% supported

sterilization of criminals, and only 15% opposed both Physicians were found to be performing coerced sterilizations of specific ethnic groups; several cases, for example, showed how

Latina and black women—without their permission—were sterilized postpartum following cesarean sections A Senate report in 1972 found widespread threatening of black women in the South to be sterilized or lose welfare benefits

4. What is your reaction to the Eugenics policies discussed here and Hitler’s corresponding commentary?

The KKK

We saw the KKK emerge in the post-Civil War South. In the ‘20s, there was a huge resurgence of the group and it had branches all throughout the country, not just the South, and not just rural areas. The 1920s Klan denounced immigrants, Jews, Catholics, and—of course—blacks; these groups represented a threat to white Protestants who had grown concerned about losing their dominant position in the social hierarchy.

5. Based on what you’ve seen in the video and read here, do you think “Age of Paranoia/Intolerance” is a fair name for the 1920s (section begins on p.4)?

The Scopes Monkey Trial (1925)

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When Darwin announced his theory that humans had descended from apes, he sent shock waves through the Western world. (In Darwin’s The Origin of the Species he stated that “the view which most…entertain, and which I formerly entertained – namely, that each species has been independently created – is erroneous.”) In the years that followed his 1859 declaration, America's churches hotly debated whether to accept the findings of modern science or continue to follow the teachings of ancient scripture. By the 1920s, most of the urban churches of America had been able to reconcile Darwin's theory with the Bible, but rural preachers preferred a stricter interpretation. Amid the dizzying changes brought by the roaring decade, religious fundamentalists saw the Bible as the only salvation from a materialistic civilization in decline. Many felt like it was better to know the “Heavenly Father, than to know how far the stars in the heavens are apart” (William Jennings Bryan, prosecutor in the Scopes case).

Fundamentalist revivalists emphasized a literal interpretation of the Bible and rejected modern science as inconsistent with the revealed word of God. They, like advocates of Prohibition and nativist supporters of the KKK, often found themselves on the defensive against what they viewed as an alien/corrupted culture in 1920s America. Fundamentalists, like the aforementioned groups, remained deeply suspicious of postwar cultural and economic trends of the 1920s. In 1925, the Tennessee legislature forbade the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution in any public school or university. Butler’s law, as it was called, prohibited the teaching of “any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” Other Southern states followed suit. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) led the charge of evolution's supporters. It offered to fund the legal defense of any Tennessee teacher willing to fight the law in court. A showdown between modernity and tradition was unfolding.

The man who accepted the challenge was John Scopes, a science teacher and football coach in Dayton, Tennessee. In the spring of 1925, he walked into his classroom and read part of a chapter on the evolution of humankind and Darwin's theory of natural selection. His arrest soon followed, and a trial date was set. Representing Scopes was the famed trial lawyer Clarence Darrow. Slick and sophisticated, Darrow epitomized the urban society in which he lived. The prosecution was led by William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate and former secretary of state. The "Great Commoner" was the perfect representative of the rural values he dedicated his life to defend. Bryan was a Christian who lobbied for a constitutional amendment banning the teaching of evolution throughout the nation.

The trial turned into a media circus. Six blocks were transformed into a pedestrian mall and the courtroom was outfitted with the latest technology to transmit the story to the world: telegraph and telephone wiring, movie-newsreel camera platforms and radio microphones. Journalists, preachers and fortune seekers filled the streets, where entrepreneurs sold everything from food to Bibles to stuffed monkeys. The trial became the first ever to be broadcast on radio. It was commonly called a “monkey trial” by fundamentalists who trivialized Darwin’s theory into a claim that humans had descended from monkeys.

The trial opened up with a long speech by Scopes’s defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, who argued that the Butler law violated freedom of religion and represented “as brazen and as bold an attempt to destroy learning as was ever made.” Throughout the duration of the trial, Judge Raulston argued that the Butler law gave “no preference to any particular religion of mode of worship.”

Scopes himself played a rather small role in the case: the trial was reduced to a verbal contest between Darrow and Bryan. The key to Darrow’s defense was to have scientists testify, but Judge Raulston (a devout Christian) refused to admit expert testimony on the validity of evolutionary theory. Judge Raulston stated, "It is not within the province of the court under these issues to decide and determine which is true, the story of divine creation as taught in the Bible, or the story of the creation of man as taught by evolution." In short, no experts were needed to understand the simple language of the Tennessee law. As such, Darrow lost his best defense. He decided that if he was not permitted to validate Darwin, his best shot was to attack the literal interpretation of the Bible. The climax of the trial came when Darrow asked Bryan to take the stand as an expert on the Bible. Darrow hammered Bryan with tough questions on his strict acceptance of several Bible's stories from the creation of Eve from Adam's rib to the swallowing of Jonah by a whale.

In the end, the jury sided with the law and convicted Scopes, who was fined $100 and released. Though he appealed the conviction, the Tennessee court system again ruled against him by asserting that the Butler law was constitutional in 1927. It would remain on the books until 1967, when the Tennessee legislature repealed the statute. But it is often said that the battle that played out before

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the nation had no clear winner. The trial could be viewed as a victory for supporters of evolutionary theory by making literal interpretations of the Bible look “foolish” (Bryan was allegedly embarrassed on the stand when he could not explain miracles, Immaculate Conception, how God created the world in a matter of days, etc.). On the other hand, fundamental Christians gained thousands of new followers who had tuned into the radio airwaves to listen to revivalist ministers preach. The debate between religion and science continued to plague state legislatures and state courts in the South well into the 1990s.

Other related cases: 1968 would mark the first time that a state Supreme Court would strike down a law prohibiting the teaching of evolution (Epperson v. Arkansas – the Court held that the statute was unconstitutional on the grounds that the First Amendment does not permit a state to require that teaching and learning must be tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any particular religious sect/doctrine). In 1973, Tennessee became the first state to pass a law requiring that public schools give equal emphasis to “the Genesis account in the Bible” along with other theories about the origins of man. It demanded that evolution be taught as a theory and not fact. Two years later, the law would be declared unconstitutional by a federal appeals court. In 1987, in Edwards v. Aguillard the Court held Louisiana’s Creationism Act unconstitutional. The act prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools, except when it was accompanied by instruction in “creation science.” The Court found that by advancing religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind the act impermissibly endorses religion. In addition, the Court found that the provision of a comprehensive science education is undermined when it is forbidden to teach evolution except when creation science is also taught.

William Jennings Bryan on science: “Science is a magnificent force, but it is not a teacher of morals. It can perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to protect society from the misuse of the machine. It can also build gigantic intellectual ships, but it . . . fails to supply the spiritual element needed robbing the ship of its compass and thus endangering its cargo. In war, science has proven itself an evil genius. Man used to be content to slaughter his fellowmen on a single plane, the earth's surface. Science has taught him to go down into the water and shoot up from below and to go up into the clouds and shoot down from above, thus making the battlefield three times as bloody as it was before. . . . Now we are told that newly discovered instruments of destruction will make the cruelties of the late war seem trivial in comparison with the cruelties of wars that may come in the future. If civilization is to be saved from the wreckage threatened by intelligence not consecrated by love, it must be saved by the moral code of Christ. His teachings, and His teachings alone, can solve the problems that vex the heart and perplex the world.”

6. Who were religious fundamentalists of the 1920s? What did they believe?

7. What were the results of the Scopes Monkey Trial?

8. What role should the government (local, state, and/or federal) play in this debate between fundamentalists and modernists (those that support the theory of evolution)?

Polling on Evolution/Creationism in America Today—Record your guess in the first space and the actual figures (discussed in class) in the second space:

According to a 2014 Gallup poll, about ___% ___% of Americans believe that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so."

___% ___% believe that "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process.”

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___% ___% believe that "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process.“

9. Record your reactions to the poll above:

Presidents and Politics of the 1920s, excerpts from WhiteHouse.org:

In the early 1920s, weary from fighting a world war and disillusioned by the failure of Wilson’s plans to create a new world order, Americans sought stability. Republicans, in contrast to the Democrat Wilson, promised a “return to normalcy.” Republicans ceased promises of progressive reforms (remember, TR and Taft had both been Republican) and instead aimed to settle into traditional patterns of government. (Note: It is during this decade that the Republican Party starts to resemble the Republican Party of today.)

Republican policies of the 1920s generally gave corporations free rein, raised protective tariffs, cut taxes for the rich, and neglected growing signs of economic instability. Throughout the decade, rural banks failed, farmers lost their lands, tax cuts contributed to an uneven distribution of wealth and the overproduction of goods, and Americans were deeply in debt but continued taking part in a spiraling spending spree “paid for” by easy installment credit terms. These issues were often masked by the image of the glittery “roaring twenties” and most historians contend that the presidents of the era pursued policies that seemed in step with the times. Nonetheless, historians content that the roots of the Great Depression, which began in 1929, lie in the policies of these conservative presidents.

Warren G. Harding, 1921-1923

Before his nomination, Warren G. Harding declared, "America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality." After winning the Presidential election by an unprecedented landslide of 60 percent of the popular vote, Republicans in Congress allied with Harding to undo many of the progressive policies of the Wilson administration. They eliminated wartime controls and slashed taxes on higher incomes, established a federal budget system, restored the high protective tariff, and imposed tight limitations upon immigration. Prosperity of the 1920s led newspapers to hail Harding as a wise statesman carrying out his campaign promise: "Less government in business and more business in government." Accusations of patronage and wrongdoing, which turned out to be true, sidetracked the president's agenda early in his administration. In the wake of scandals and his untimely death while still in office (after a heart attack), Harding's domestic achievements lost what little luster they had. Harding's short term as president prevented him from crafting a distinctive foreign policy. His style was to defer to Congress as much as possible. The Washington Disarmament Conference of 1921 is a good example. The conference, which succeeded in reducing the navies of the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy, came at the insistence of the Senate, not the administration.

Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929

As conservative with his words as he was with his politics, "Silent Cal" espoused a policy of keeping the government out of the way of big business and generally appeared to embrace the status quo. As President, Coolidge demonstrated his determination to preserve the old moral and economic precepts amid the material prosperity which many Americans were enjoying. He refused to use federal economic power to check the growing boom or to ameliorate the depressed condition of agriculture and certain industries; the neglect of these issues would later lead to economic calamity. In the realm of foreign affairs, Coolidge supported the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, which renounced war in principle; the document was signed by 62 other nations. Though it was celebrated by peace organizations, critics asserted that the pact was meaningless, as it lacked powers of enforcement.

Coolidge’s signature foreign policy achievement was the Dawes Plan of 1924 (drafted by Herbert Hoover and Chicago banker Charles Dawes; different from the Dawes Act we studied in P6). The plan dealt with German reparations. Germany had defaulted on their

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ability to deliver further amounts of coal, timber, and steel in line with its reparation quotas. In response, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr River Valley in Germany, which outraged Germans. To defuse this situation and increase the chances of Germany resuming reparation payments, the Allied Reparations Commission asked Dawes to find a solution fast. The results were as follows: 1) the Ruhr was to be evacuated; 2) reparations would be gradual and increase annually; 3) the German banking system would be reorganized under Allied supervision; 4) the sources for reparation money would include transportation, excise, and customs taxes; and 5) U.S. investment companies, under the supervision of the U.S. State Department, would loan Germany money so they could begin paying back Britain and France. The plan worked in the short-term, softening the burdens of war reparations for Germany and making the German economy dependent on foreign markets and economies. This cycle of money from U.S. loans to Germany, which made reparations to other European nations, who then paid off their debts to the U.S., locked the western world’s economy into that of the U.S., which helps explain why the Great Depression had such far-reaching impacts.

Herbert Hoover, 1929-1933

Herbert Hoover brought to the Presidency an unparalleled reputation for public service as an engineer, administrator, and humanitarian. After the United States entered WWI, President Wilson appointed Hoover head of the Food Administration. He succeeded in cutting consumption of foods needed overseas and avoided rationing at home, yet kept the Allies fed. After the Armistice, Hoover, a member of the Supreme Economic Council and head of the American Relief Administration, organized shipments of food for starving millions in central Europe. He extended aid to famine-stricken Soviet Russia in 1921. When a critic inquired if he was not thus helping Bolshevism, Hoover retorted, "Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!"

After capably serving as Secretary of Commerce under Presidents Harding and Coolidge, Hoover became the Republican Presidential nominee in 1928. Hoover's presidency began amidst grand optimism as the prosperity of the 1920s carried him into office. Timing was not in his favor, however. Seven months later, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression took hold. Hoover responded to the economic catastrophe with the assertion that care for those suffering must be a local and voluntary responsibility. To the millions of Americans who were unemployed, Hoover’s “voluntarism” was interpreted as apathy and negligence; soon Hoover became the scapegoat for the depression itself.

(We’ll talk more about “Hoover’s Failure” in future documents.)

10. What economic policies did the Republican presidents of the 1920s pursue?

11. Why do you suspect the U.S. agreed to the Dawes Plan of 1924?

12. How did the Dawes Plan of 1924 work? What is your evaluation of the plan?

A “Harlem Renaissance” Poem by Langston Hughes: Let America be America Again

Let America be America again.Let it be the dream it used to be.Let it be the pioneer on the plainSeeking a home where he himself is free.(America never was America to me.)

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And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,And torn from Black Africa's strand I cameTo build a "homeland of the free."

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 dreamedAnd all the songs we've sungAnd all the hopes we've heldAnd all the flags we've hung,

Let it be that great strong land of loveWhere never kings connive nor tyrants schemeThat any man be crushed by one above.(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where LibertyIs crowned with no false patriotic wreath,But opportunity is real, and life is free,Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.I am the red man driven from the land,I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--And finding only the same old stupid planOf dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,Tangled in that ancient endless chainOf 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!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.I am the worker sold to the machine.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.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dreamIn the Old World while still a serf of kings,Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,That even yet its mighty daring singsIn every brick and stone, in every furrow turnedThat's made America the land it has become.O, I'm the man who sailed those early seasIn search of what I meant to be my home--For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,

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And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,And torn from Black Africa's strand I cameTo build a "homeland of the free."

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 dreamedAnd all the songs we've sungAnd all the hopes we've heldAnd all the flags we've hung,