"In steamy Louisiana, while a perspiring Langston argued in vain with a white brakeman about the lack of air-conditioning in the crowded Jim Crow car, an old black lady quietly listened to him. Then, embarrassed for them both, she lowered her eyes, took out her lunch box, sighed, and began to eat. As the train rolled on, Langston penned a bitter little poem about Jim Crow:
Get out the lunch-box of your dreams
And bite into the sandwich of your heart,
And ride the Jim Crow car until it screams
And, like an atom bomb, bursts apart."
~Arnold Rampersad, The Life Of Langston Hughes Vol. II
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