Townsend Allen; Colored American Magazine, August 1903:

Ay, black was the man, and black was the deed,
But blacker by far was the lawless creed
Of those lawless men with their faces white
Who avenged the deed in the dead of night!

For black were the hearts of that howling mob,
And worthy of Hades their fiendish job!
A shudder of horror around the globe ran,
At this beastly revertal [sic] of civilized man!

The earth holds no record of more barbarous scene,
No wild, savage orgie [sic] in history’s dark screen
Surpasses in demon-like hatred and spite,
The deed of those white men that shameful night.

And this, on Columbia’s “land of the free!”
Beneath the bright flag whose stars all decree
A perfect equality, justice; above all
Protect by law, until those stars fall!

And this, when we reprimand Russia, in sooth!
And prate of our liberty, freedom and truth!
The nations of earth point the finger of scorn
At Columbia’s banner, blood stained and torn!

Shame! shame on the brutes who let loose on the land
This Spirit of Lawlessness! ‘Twas Southern hand
First took up the fagot, the torch and the stake,
And started these fires which ’twill take blood to slake.

Defiant of law, both of man and of heaven,
They lynched and they roasted alive! Now this leaven
Contagious is working; but God is not blind;
They’ll reap the wild whirlwind, who sow the wind!

And climbing up with childish grace
She held him with a close embrace–
Her clinging was a thing of dread
Where’er she touched a fissure spread;

And he who breasted many a storm,
Stood frowning there, a mangled form;
So truth, dropped in the silent earth,
May seem a thing of little worth–
Till, spreading ’round some mighty wrong,
It saps its pillars proud and strong.