Friday, June 11, 2004
The Backlash Blues, Langston Hughes
THE BACKLASH BLUES
by Langston Hughes
Mister Backlash, Mister Backlash,
Just who do you think I am?
You raise my taxes, freeze my wages,
Send my son to Vietnam.
You give me second class houses,
Second class schools.
Do you think that colored folks
Are just second class fools?
When I try to find a job
To earn a little cash,
All you got to offer
Is a white backlash.
But the world is big,
Big and bright and round--
And it's full of folks like me who are
Black, Yellow, Beige, and Brown.
Mister Backlash, Mister Backlash,
What do you think I got to lose?
I'm gonna leave you, Mister Backlash,
Singing your mean old backlash blues.
You're the one
Will have the blues.
not me--
Wait and see!
This was one of the last of Langston Hughes' protest poems before his death in 1967. The backlash is the white racist reaction to the US civil rights movement which began around 1964 with increased racist attacks on blacks in the US, the war in Vietnam and the subsequent diminishing of prospects for fairier society for the American poor.
Counter Attack. Fort Carson, Colorado: New Haven Panther Defense Committee, December 1970
Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was born in Missouri and grew up in Kansas. Despite his often lonely childhood, a dislocated family and the experience of racist contempt, he became an internationally renowned writer, one of the leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s. A part of his childhood is perhaps expressed in his short poem 'Hope':
Sometimes when I'm lonely,
Don't know why,
Keep thinkin' I won't be lonely,
By and by.
The Backlash Blues was made into a song, sung by Nina Simone. The poem is similar in some ways to an older Bessie Smith song, 'Poor Man Blues':
Mister rich man, rich man,
Open up your heart and mind.
Mister rich man, rich man,
Open up your heart and mind.
Give the poor man a chance,
Help stop these hard, hard times.
While you're livin' in your mansion
You don't know what hard times means.
While you're livin' in your mansion
You don't know what hard times means.
Poor workin' man's wife is starvin',
Your wife is livin' like a queen.
"I swear to the Lord/I still can't see/Why Democracy means/Everybody but me" - Langston Hughes
See also African-American Involvement in the Vietnam War
by Langston Hughes
Mister Backlash, Mister Backlash,
Just who do you think I am?
You raise my taxes, freeze my wages,
Send my son to Vietnam.
You give me second class houses,
Second class schools.
Do you think that colored folks
Are just second class fools?
When I try to find a job
To earn a little cash,
All you got to offer
Is a white backlash.
But the world is big,
Big and bright and round--
And it's full of folks like me who are
Black, Yellow, Beige, and Brown.
Mister Backlash, Mister Backlash,
What do you think I got to lose?
I'm gonna leave you, Mister Backlash,
Singing your mean old backlash blues.
You're the one
Will have the blues.
not me--
Wait and see!
This was one of the last of Langston Hughes' protest poems before his death in 1967. The backlash is the white racist reaction to the US civil rights movement which began around 1964 with increased racist attacks on blacks in the US, the war in Vietnam and the subsequent diminishing of prospects for fairier society for the American poor.
Counter Attack. Fort Carson, Colorado: New Haven Panther Defense Committee, December 1970
Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was born in Missouri and grew up in Kansas. Despite his often lonely childhood, a dislocated family and the experience of racist contempt, he became an internationally renowned writer, one of the leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s. A part of his childhood is perhaps expressed in his short poem 'Hope':
Sometimes when I'm lonely,
Don't know why,
Keep thinkin' I won't be lonely,
By and by.
The Backlash Blues was made into a song, sung by Nina Simone. The poem is similar in some ways to an older Bessie Smith song, 'Poor Man Blues':
Mister rich man, rich man,
Open up your heart and mind.
Mister rich man, rich man,
Open up your heart and mind.
Give the poor man a chance,
Help stop these hard, hard times.
While you're livin' in your mansion
You don't know what hard times means.
While you're livin' in your mansion
You don't know what hard times means.
Poor workin' man's wife is starvin',
Your wife is livin' like a queen.
"I swear to the Lord/I still can't see/Why Democracy means/Everybody but me" - Langston Hughes
See also African-American Involvement in the Vietnam War
