Norman D. Lippincott (identified as “A white man of Asheville, N.C.”); Crisis, June 1912
Oh! White Man! Now the world is thine, alone;
We till your land, and care for what has grown;
We raise your children, and neglect our own;
We work, and thou dost reap what we have sown. Continue reading
Katharine Gilliard; Crisis, March 1916
Just a little tired, waiting
Through the night
For the new day to be breaking
Into light. Continue reading
James Weldon Johnson; Crisis, August 1915
O whitened head entwined in turban gay,
O kind black face, O crude, but tender hand,
O foster-mother in whose arms there lay
The race whose sons are masters of the land! Continue reading
James D. Corrothers; Crisis, October 1915
A curious giant, years ago,
Blind and black, down the Valley of Woe.
Untutored, and groping in primal night,
He fondled the harp, with a child’s delight. Continue reading
Otto L. Bohanan; Crisis, March 1915
Keep me in chains! I defy you!
That is a pow’r I deny you!
I will sing! I will rise!
Up! To the lurid skies–
With the smoke of my soul,
With my last breath,
Tar-feathered, I shall cry:
Ethiopia shall not die!
And hand in hand with Death,
Pass on!
I shall not curse you. But singing–
My singing! fatefully ringing
Till startled and dumb
You falter, the sum
Of your crime shall reveal–
This do I prophesy . . .
O Heart wrung dry!
Awake!
Startle the world with thy cry:
Ethiopia shall not die!
Cora J. Ball Motes; Crisis, 1914
Dusky lashes droop and fall,
Night-winds whisper, night-birds call.
Close your tired sleepy eyes,
Earth is singing lullabies. Continue reading
H. Pearson; Crisis, August 1913
To love my neighbor as myself I've always longed to do, And yet I never can succeed: My neighbor is a Jew. Continue reading
Wm. H. Maxwell; Baltimore Afro-American Ledger, March 7, 1914
Though we are black, and they are white,
Though they seem high and term us low,
They should not strangle with ugly might,
For we are men and the world must know. Continue reading
D. Webb Johns; Baltimore Afro-American Ledger, December 13, 1913
Stolen from their native land, sold in slavery; Looked upon to be outcasts, full of faith are we; By God freed but a short while, marching on with grade, Grasping opportunities, are the colored race. Continue reading
Welborn Victor Jenkins; Atlanta Independent, June 19, 1909
(Written by a trainman in appreciation of the boys who fired the trains on the Georgia road.)
1.
No muse will sing of our deeds of nerve,
No plaudits for us when our course is won;
For we are naught but the dogs who serve,
And silence must keep when the struggle is done.
Yet we know best of all that our hearts are right,
So we bend to our task till the saf'ty pops, "ziz."
We fire our engines with all our might,
But we're up in front where the danger is. Continue reading
