I, Too, Sing America Race Quotes

This quote sets the stage for the rest of the poem, establishing the speaker as African-American and placing him in a very interesting relationship with his white counterparts. He establishes himself as a "brother." Other than the slang term, what does this do to the tone of the poem? Why do you think he calls himself family in that way?

This moment sets up the power dynamic between white Americans (the "they") and black Americans in this poem. The white family is sending the speaker (who's either a slave or servant) away to go "eat in the kitchen" because they don't want him to be seen by their guests. (Side note: how does this juxtaposition of family and slavery affect the beginning of this poem? What does it do?)

Looking towards the future ("tomorrow" – which, in this case, really means many years in the future), the poem envisions a world in which all races can be at the same table (metaphorically speaking, of course – though, there's a literal element to this, too). The speaker is envisioning a world in which he'll be just as welcome as all the free people in the country.

So, when you're around other people, you're generally taught to be polite, right? (We hope so. Make your mothers proud.) In a society of equals, no one gets ordered around (well, maybe you do by your boss), and people generally try to avoid being rude to one another. Not so in a slave-master society, though – when you think of another race as property, all normal social graces go out the window. In this moment, the speaker is looking towards a world in which he is, in fact, considered equal, and therefore deserving of all the courtesies that anyone else would deserve. Including not being ordered away.

Similar to the last quote, this segment relies on the "foot in mouth" syndrome – you know, the kind you get when you say something like, "Boy, only a moron would like Skittles" and your best friend looks at you and goes, "Uh, I like Skittles." Whoops. You misjudged. Here, the people who enslaved the speaker in the first place will realize what a terrible mistake they made. And they'll feel really bad about it. (Turns out, Hughes was right.)

In this final reprise of the title and first line, the speaker reiterates that he, too, is part of the American family. That is to say, that all races are created equal, and that it takes more than one kind of person to make up the country that we live in. Importantly, that means that no one group of people should be enslaved or oppressed by another group of people. The term "America" is often associated with "freedom"…but we'll get to that in a minute.