“O yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me,” called out Sam Williams, reciting the poetry of writer Langston Hughes on Feb. 1, in the ARC Courtyard Theatre in honor of Black History Month.

Instructor Sam Williams performed a one-man show called Jazzonian Dream Variation as part of the ARC High School Musical Tour. The performance was filled with dancing, singing, and poetry with the classic tracks of Duke Ellington and Stevie Wonder playing in the background as he recited the words of Langston Hughes. Williams changed costumes on-stage to suit the different roles he was playing and donned tap shoes to lend rhythm as he recited the poetry.

“He wrote about the black experience in urban dimensions,” Williams said of the celebrated writer.

Hughes spent an estimated 40 years writing poetry, novels, and other works, and was renowned for his influence in the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920’s.

Williams describes the life of Hughes during his 45-minute act, and related the struggles Hughes faced as a man with a white father and a black mother, his internal conflicts of being a “mulatto,” and the racism that burdens Hughes throughout his life.
The small venue allowed Williams to be intimate with the audience, gesturing towards them during appropriate moments and dancing up and down the aisles. Williams even involved a member of the audience in a short dance number. The audience responded with loud applause after each poem.

“[It was] very interesting,

educational. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again,” said Drew Struck, an ARC student.

“He puts together fantastic shows,” said Nick Heacock, a theatre arts major.

When asked what his favorite Hughes writing was, Williams responded with the poem, “Let America Be America,” just after reciting it to the audience as his finale. “It has so many rhythms,” he said.

“We the people must redeem the land, the mines, the plants, the rivers, the mountains and the endless plain, all, all the stretch of these great green states, and make America again!”
And with those words of Hughes, Williams concluded his tribute to the great American writer.