Miners,
Farmers,
Mechanics,
Mill Hands,
Shop girls,
Railway men,
Servants,
Tobacco workers,
Sharecroppers,
GREETINGS!
I am the black worker,
Listen:
That the land might be ours,
And the mines and the factories and the office towers
At Harlan, Richmond, Gastonia, Atlanta, New Orleans;
That the plants and the roads and the tools of power
The speaker appears to be against large corporations or what he might deem greedy employers when he claims “the land” for the Black and white worker, the “us” of the line. I see this connection because of several references to labor unions throughout the poem, and the general Marxist rhetoric of class.
Open Letter to the South