10.22.2026 – want America to

want America to
really be for everybody
let us make it so

Can we not put our heads together and think and plan — not merely dream — the future America?

We do not want any secondary Americans.

We do not want a weak and imperfect democracy.

We do not want poverty and hunger and prejudice and fear on the part of any portion of our population.

We want America to really be America for everybody.

Let us make it so!

Langston Hughes, Speech at the Public Session of the Third American Writers’ Congress, Carnegie Hall, New York City, June 2, 1939. (Langston Hughes Papers. James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.)

Something about Mr. Hughes’ words remind of the words used in what some call The Birth Cerificate of the United States of America, otherwise known as the Declaration of Indepedence.

The words where Mr. Jefferson, with contributions from the rest of the Continental Congress, wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

They were saying …

We do not want any secondary Americans.

We do not want a weak and imperfect democracy.

We do not want poverty and hunger and prejudice and fear on the part of any portion of our population.

We want America to really be America for everybody.

Let us make it so!

And they put their heads together to think and to plan to make it more than a dream.

The future they saw would require … That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

… Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

… deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

… from the consent of the governed.

It is time for us, the governed, to show up and spell out what we consent to.

For myself:

I do not want any secondary Americans.

I do not want a weak and imperfect democracy.

I do not want poverty and hunger and prejudice and fear on the part of any portion of our population.

I want America to really be America for everybody.

Let us make it so!

See you on November 3rd.