Langston Hughes and Martin Luther King grew up in somewhat similar environments. Both, as African American men, had to deal with the everyday and very evident racism of an unequal …show more content…
King’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech, was directly Langston Hughes and his poem Dream Variation directly influence King’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech. Upon first glance, the poem’s title, plays on the themes of African American Dreams. Structurally the poem is seventeen lines and divided into two stanzas. Stanza one and two mirror each and compare day and night as a metaphor for race: white and black. The first four lines use imagery of the day and verbs to discuss the white workday in which the white man rules. Line four, “Till the White day is done,” ends the day with a literal period as a brief reflection of the day where the white man rules(Hughes 4). The next lines transition the scene of the poem to evening. Stanza two discusses the night, “Black like me,” and how it is a world where African Americans rule. The poem uses the imagery to express how the two worlds are different, but need each other to balance. It is an overall social commentary on