Carita Owens Collins; Poems for Your Scrap Book, Chicago Defender, April 30, 1921

This must not be!
The time is past when black men,
Haggard sons of Ham,
Shall tamely bow and weakly cringe
In servile manner, full of shame.

Lift up your heads!
Be proud! Be brave!
Though black, the same red blood
Flows through your veins
As through your paler brothers.

And that same blood
So freely spend on Flanders fields,
Shall yet redeem your Race.
Be men, not cowards,
And demand your rights.

Your toil enriched the Southern lands;
Your anguish has made sweet the sugar cane;
Your sweat has moistened the growing corn.
And drops of blood from the cruel master’s whip
Has caused the white cotton to burst forth in mute protest.

Demand, come not mock suppliant!
Demand, and if not given–take!
Take what is rightfully yours;
An eye for an eye;
A soul for a soul;
Strike, black man, strike!
This shall not be!

[This poem appears in two categories: “Hope and the Future” and “Pride and Accomplishments.]