"We Real Cool" definitely has a powerful message behind it. It is a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks. It was written in the 1960's when African-Americans were fighting for their civil rights. She looks at the time of adolescence African-American from her generation would fight for their rights as human beings letting be seen as rebels by dropping school, singing, dancing, living life like it was the end of the world.The teenagers are obviously not too fond about attending school. Therefore, they skip and find solace and pleasure at a pool facility. It seems as if the teenagers really don't care about their education and go day by day living a happy-go-lucky lifestyle. The happiness that they are feeling by playing pool supports that theory.
They had to work hard, make their voices be heard. We also have to look at the time she was living when black community was not accepted into society. Martin Luther King Jr. was the civil rights leader back then. Black community was segregated. She gives the poem a special effect with the use of syntactic urgency, pressure to connect the lines.The entire tone of the poem is very upbeat; however, the tone changes dramatically at the end with the following statement: "We die soon." This one line alone says a lot.