Category Archives: Injustices and Burdens

Poets pointed out a wide range of discriminations that demonstrated disrespect and unequal justice. They sometimes also called attention to problems created by blacks themselves.

The Optimist (1920)

Ethyl Lewis; Crisis, September 1920

Oppressed? Ah, well, the devil, you say!
Well–weeping can only last for a day;
The blackest cloud is all bright inside–
What’s in with the flood goes our with the tide.

Scorned and laughed at! That matters not–
He who laughs last has the best of the lot;
The first shall be last and the last shall be first–
He who gives drink, tomorrow may thirst.

You’re suffering now, dark clouds enshroud–
But yours is the suffering of which one is proud;
For out of the hell and the hard of it all,
Salvation will come, as the light came to Saul.

The war has been killing your men, you say;
Despair has been eating your heart away–
It would be all right if you didn’t know
That the country you love despised you so.

Never mind, children be patient awhile,
And carry your load with a nod and a smile;
For out of the hell and the hard of it all,
Time is sure to bring sweetest honey–not gall.

Our of the hell and hard of it all,
A bright star shall rise that never shall fall;
A God-fearing race–proud, noble and true,
Giving good for the evil which they always knew,

Before whom all nations shall come and bow down
And place at its feet the world’s scepter and crown.
The scorners will then know “What fools mortals be!”
And the laughers can no more find heart for their glee.

So dry your wet pillow and lift your bowed head,
And show to the world that hope is not dead!
Be patient! Wait! See what yet may befall,
Out of the hell and hard of it all.

Leadership (1930)

The Deacon; California Eagle, February 21, 1930

   If you have political ambition
To fill a leaders place,
   Then advocate separate schools,
And segregation of the Negro race.
 
   Stand up and tell the public
That colored children are unfit,
   To join with other children,
In a public benefit.
 
   Then you are on the road,
To receive great public applause,
   From those who may desire
To change the segregation laws.
 
   The black advocates of segregation,
Are a sly and foxy groupe [sic];
   They wear the mask of hypocricy [sic];
To deception they freely stoop.
 
   Some of our leaders,
Demand Jim Crow Public [sic] schools;
   And secretly demand segregation
In the public swimming pools.

   If these Jim Crow Negro leaders,
Suffering with dysentery of the mouth; [sic]
   Are lonesome without segregation
They should return to the South.
 
   Return to the sunny southland,
With their Uncle Tom devotions,
   Their inferiority complex minds,
And segregation notions.
 
   Lord, purge our race of hypocrites
And set our vision straight;
   Free our minds of prejudice,
Deceit, suspicion and hate.

Not Free (1921)

Edwin Garnett Riley; Poems for Your Scrap Book, Chicago Defender, April 23, 1921

I live upon a blood washed soil,
   Where freedom's sons their rights expound.
'Tis here I breathe and strive and toil,
   And yet, in fact, I still am bound.

'Tis here the eyes of all mankind,
   In search of justice, fondly turn;
Yet they who wield the power are blind;
   The nobler law they rashly spurn.

I am not free while that which cries
   For greater consciousness within.
The boasted claim of cast denies
   To me and others of my kin.

I am not free while I must lie
   Within the pale of grottoes dim
And be accursed--I know not why--
   A victim to each churlish whim.

I am not free while others seek
   To bind me to a menial state,
And strive to prove that I am weak
   And never can be strong or great.

I am not free while hatred reigns,
   While scorn rejects my race and hue,
And sullen prejudice disdains
   To grant me that which is my due.

I am not free nor shall I be
   'Til love has sealed the hearts of men,
And truth, her mighty travail see;
   I shall be free, but not 'til then.

E Pluribus Unum (1917)

Edna Perry Booth, Brooklyn, N.Y.; California Eagle, August 18, 1917

I wonder if Abe Lincoln can look down from where he is
And see the things that happen in this land that once was his?
I wonder if his heart aches; if the tears bedim his eyes;
If Heaven is not quite perfect for him beyond the skies?
He must recall the message he gave us, long ago,
When he said, “God made men equal,” then helped to prove them so.
But are they equal? Are they free? And what is freedom, pray,
When some men’s souls are scarce their own in this fair land today?

So I wonder if Abe Lincoln wouldn’t like to just step down
To earth and count as nothing the loss of golden crown,
Just to show an erring people what he meant when once he said,
“Equality for each one,” be he black or white or red.
Yes, his heart must ache, and grieving must fill his soul to see
How they’ve abused his message since the days of ’63.
But patience, men–truth, crushed to earth, will surely rise again,
And never anything worth while was won, except through pain.

There’s Someone who is watching; there’s Someone taking toll;
And every unjust deed will reap, some day, a white man’s soul.
Abe Lincoln will yet see his words respected and fulfilled–
Will find the cruel slander against the dark race stilled.
Then, perhaps, we’ll boast a country that is brave and truly fee,
That upholds its own dear honor and its vaunted liberty;
Then our E Pluribus Unum will be more than empty phrase,
And our treatment of the dark race won’t besmirch the flag we raise.

[This poem appears in three categories: “God and Christ,” “Hope and the Future,” and “Injustices”

The Difference (1913)

Ella Wheeler Wilcox; Colored American Magazine, October 1903, and Washington Bee, July 26, 1913 (with different punctuation and line breakdowns in the latter)

To the coal black maid,
The white man said,
   "You must yield your honor to me,
For I am king of everything,
   Ay! king of land and sea!"
Now a beast or a bird mates but with its kind,
Yet a man will follow the lust of his mind.

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