We discuss Langston Hughes’ “Let America be America Again” with talented poet and scholar Joshua Bennett, who in his teenage years recited spoken word for President and Mrs. Obama at the White House. In this poem, Hughes conjures a nostalgia for America that naturally swells any patriot's breast. Yet, at the same time, the poet refuses this “false patriotic wreath,” voicing his anger at exclusion and his discomfort with claiming a place in America’s future. Hughes’ poem does not speak wit...