Queston [1]

HEN the old junk man Death

Comes to gather up our bodies

And toss them into the sack of oblivion,

I wonder if he will find

The corpse of a white multi-millionaire

Worth more pennies of eternity,

Than the black torso of

A Negro cotton-picker?

Hughes poses a powerful question with this poem. Is the white man better than the black man? Is the corpse of a white man more significant than that of a black man?

Lets first look at the context: During slavery, slaves were and had to be strong and fit to work in the harsh conditions in which they were forced. So consider the body of a slave cotton-picker as a parallel to the white slaveowner's bank account.