Longston Hughes رو تو ایران اغلب با ترجمه هایی که آقای شاملو تحت مجموعه "سیاه همچون اعماق افریقای خودم" از اشعارش داشته می شناسن. مضمون اغلب اشعارهیوز- شاعر فقید سیاه پوست - اختلافات نژادی در امریکای اوائل قرن بیستمه، آمریکایی که قوانین برده داری رو ملغی اعلام کرده ولی هنوز به اشکال مختلف روابط احتماعی عصر برده داری سر جاشه. احتمالا همه تون مجموعه "سیاه همچون اعماق افریقای خودم" رو دیدین یا کاستش رو شنیدین. شعر زیر یکی از اشعار هیوزه که ترجمه نشده. و من توی این آدرس پیداش کردم:

Freedom Train
by: Longston Hughes


I read the papers about the Freedom Train
I heard on the radio about the Freedom Train
I seen folks tlaking about the Freedom Train
Lord, I've been a-waitin for the Freedom Train!
Washington, Richmond, Durham, Chatanooga, Atlanta
Way crss Georgia.
Lord, Lord, Lord
way down in Dixie the only trains I see's
Got a Jim-Crow coaches set aside for me.
I hope their ain't no Jim Crow on the Freedom Train,
No back door enterance to the Freedom Train,
No sign FOR COLORED on the Freedom Train,
No WHITE FOLKS ONLY on the Freedom Train.
I'm gonna check up.
I'm gonna to check up on this
Freedom Train.

Who is the engineer on the Freedom Train?
Can a coal-black man drive the Freedom Train?
Or am I still a porter on the Freedom Trian?
Is there ballot boxes on the Freedom Train?
Do coloured folks vote on the Freedom Train?
When it stops in Mississippi, will it be made plain
Everybody's got a right to board the Freedom Train?
I'm gonna check up.
I'm gonna to check up on this
Freedom Train.
The Birmingham station's marked COLORED and WHITE.
The white folks go left
The coloured go right.
They even got a segregated lane.
Is this the way to get aboard the Freedom Train?
I'm gonna check up.
I'm gonna check up on this
Freedom Train.

If my children ask me, Daddy, please explain
Why a Jim Crow stations for the Freedom Train?
What shall I tell my children?
You tell me, cause freedom ain't freedom when a man ain't free.
My brother named Jimmy died at Anzio
He died for real, and it wasn't no show.
Is this here freedom on the Freedom Train really freedom or show again?

Now let the Freedom Train come zooming down the track
Gleaming in the sunlight for white and black
Not stoppin' at no stations marked COLORED nor WHITE,
Just stoppin' in the fields in the braid daylight,
Stoppin' in the country in the wide open air
Where there never was a Jim Crow sign nowhere,
And no Lilly-White Committees, politicians of note,
Nor poll tax layer through which colored can't vote
And there won't be no kinda color lines
The Freedom Train will be yours
And mine.
Then maybe from their graves in Anzio
Black men and white will say, We want it so!
Black men and white will say, Ain't it fine?
At home they got a Freedom Train,
A Freedom Train,
That's yours and mine!