Merry-Go-Round by Langston Hughes

Merry-Go-Round by Langston Hughes

Where is the Jim Crow section 
On this merry-go-round, 
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from 
White and colored 
Can't sit side by side. 
Down South on the train 
There's a Jim Crow car. 
On the bus we're put in the back—
But there ain't no back 
To a merry-go-round! 
Where's the horse 
For a kid that's black?

Vocabulary:

• Jim Crow Section- Section for African Americans after the Jim Crow laws were passed so blacks would remain separate but equal.

Analysis:

• The poem touches on the sensitive section of racism. The speaker, a child from down south, has grown up around racism and that is all he knows. Now that he is at a carnival,in the North, a new question arises to him, where can he sit on the merry go round? As a black child he has been put in the back and set aside but he can't be put in the back on a merry go round because there is no back, it is just a circle. The merry go round is a simple joy of childhood just like being able to sit where you want is a simple joy to everyday life. This child is deprived of that joy and the merry go round makes it apparent that everybody should have the right to sit where they please and go where they please regardless of the color of there skin.

Theme:

• The theme of the poem is that racism is senseless, if something as innocent as a merry go round is not subjected to racism than something as innocent as a child should not be either.

Personal Connection: 

• I liked this poem because it took something that has caused so many problems through out history and took it to the prospective of a child. To adults the issue seemed much more complicated but in the poem the author makes the issue seem silly and insignificant by taking it from a complex idea as most adults viewed into the simplicity of a child wondering where to sit on a merry go round.