Here Hughes uses a metaphor to compare greedy people to parasites or "leeches". By using this metaphor there is an understanding that the avarice of the higher class is exploitative and unwanted. As the lines go on it is clear that Hughes full message is about how the exploited must take back the America which they have worked so hard for. Hughes is promoting the idea of this lower, working class ridding themselves of the parasites, reclaiming the land, and rejoicing in their declaration over America.

In this moment Hughes makes a claim that America belongs to those "who made America". Not the white men who sat on porches or those who stood and watched the auctions. Not the white settlers who murdered Native Americans in mass or the people who refuse to support the poor and less fortunate. But rather Hughes is arguing that America was made by those who gave blood, sweat, and tears for the very foundations and growth of the nation. Hence why he says, "The land thats mine-the poor man's, Indians, Negro's, ME-Who made America."

Here, Hughes promotes a message of hope for change in America. When Hughes writes "America was never America to me", he is discussing how marginalized groups have never felt the promise of America. However, in his following lines he shows promise in achieving those feelings and how those feelings are simply something that hasn't happened yet. Rather than spewing hate and rejecting the nation, he chooses to make an oath to believe and work for Americas change for the better.

Hughes uses situational irony to portray the hypocrisy in the "homeland of the free" being built on the backs of people who were denied freedom and held in slavery and captivity. By doing so he places emphasis on how while others profited on the benefits of freedom in America, many lower class people and minorities, especially enslaved people, were subject to the opposite of what was to be expected in a nation dubbed "land of the free".

A serf was a term used to describe an "unfree peasant" in the lowest rank of the medieval social hierarchy. Serfs could not be bought, sold, or separated from their families as slaves were, but they were bound to the land that they tended and could not leave the manor, marry, or change occupations without the consent of the lord they served. A serf's main obligation was to tend their lord's private land. They also provided labor and crops from their personal garden as a form of rent, in addition to paying taxes to the lord.