langston hughes-inspired portrait series celebrates black beauty and humanity 

Shot by photographer Mark Elzey backstage at Collina Strada Spring Summer 2017, his “I, too” photo series is inspired by a poem of the same name by Langston Hughes. A stirring and captivating love letter to blackness and a complicated portrait of post-abolition Black Americanness, an idealistic hope for humanity that has long been denied. A hopefulness that, no matter how naive, persists in the Black American consciousness. Now, Elzey’s presents the beauty Hughes referenced, well overdue of acknowledgment.

I, Too

BY LANGSTON HUGHES

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.