Open Letter To The South By Langston Hughes

In the Langston Hughes poem, “Open Letter to the South”, is about workers needing to unify despite their color. He also talks about how together they will be stronger and more powerful; together they can rise and get rid of the plow and time clock of the past. He wants everyone to forget about being separate and look at becoming equal. When people are separate, they are not as strong, but equality brings everyone together and gives more strength and power to everyone. “Let us become …. One single hand that can united can rise” (21-23). Poverty was caused by, in Marxist term, division of labor, where jobs were divided based on race. During the era that Langston Hughes was a writer who believed in revolution, and that too, should take place in the nearby future.
In the poem, Hughes talks about how whites and blacks should come together and become one, no matter the skin color and the past and how together they will be stronger and more powerful. A prominent way we see it used is at the beginning and end of the poem on lines 14, 15, and 17 then it repeats again on lines 58-61. At the beginning of the poem, it says, “That the land might be ours, /And the mines and the factories and the office towers.” (14-15). Also in the lines, “We did not know that we were brothers. Now we know! out of that brotherhood Let power grow!”