Significance of title
The significance of the title is talking about Victory day. The anniversary of Japan’s surrender to the Allies in 1945, ending World War II. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Manchuria in the previous week made the surrender inevitable. http:
//www.timeanddate.com/holidays/us/victory-day. Also it was the day African
Americans helped fight.
“Troops in Burma stop work briefly to read President
Truman's Proclamation of Victory in Europe." May 9, 1945” http://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/ww2pictures http://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/ww2pictures/images/african-americans-wwii-012.jpg
Diction
He is using diction to show that he is fighting for democracy but he still has his rights restrained from him
● “Tan-skinned yank.”
“ Colored folks sit in front of a colored only store in Belle Grade Florida. This store was
● “Fascists' laps..” segregated by police order, just like all stores
● “I face death.” and locations were under the Jim Crow laws
● “Jim Crow birds.” that 'required' separate but equal services for colored and white people. The building itself
● “Victory’s glow.” seems to be covered in dirt and not well taken
● “Liberated.” care of. This shows that many colored only
● “Negro American.” stores were very poor, and there were likely very few in number. The surrounding area
● “Herd.” shows that it is in a very poor location.
● “Cattle.”
Often colored only stores were poor, simply out of the fact that colored people were kept
● “For Democracy?” poorer than whites.”
(http://mrd4-jimcrow-shopping.weebly.com/)
Tone
Langston Hughes tone in this poem shows how he is disappointed, grieved, and indignant towards the wrong doing towards African Americans that still have no rights even though they fought in the war.
● “When I take off my uniform,
Will