Category Archives: Hope, Determination, and the Future

Despite continued discrimination–including lynching, segregation, disfranchisement, debt peonage, restrictions on military service, the convict lease system–African Americans generally wrote poems that reflected faith in themselves and in their country. Religion frequently played a part in their view of their past accomplishments and in the future possibilities.

Hast Thou Forsaken Us? (1921)

Miss V. C. Thomas; Poems for Your Scrap Book, Chicago Defender, May 9, 1921

Twelve million strong we stand in grim array,
Twelve million strong denied the light of day;
Twelve million hearts in Thee, God, do they trust,
Twelve million dry: Has Thou forsaken us?

Like herded beasts they brought us to these shores,
Like beasts were we disposed of to our foes,
Like beasts they scourged our bodies to the dust,
O God, hast Thou, hast Thou forsaken us?

We’ve plowed these fields and made these forests clear,
We’ve drained these swamps and made waste places bear,
Our fate through all these years has seemed unjust,
With tears, we ask, hast Thou forsaken us?

In battle, too, we’ve labored side by side;
When needed, for this country we have died,
For America alone, and not for lust,
We’ve fought; and now, proud land, has thou forsaken us?

We’ve given of our best to this fair land:
In men, in blood, in labor of the hand.
Our bank accounts, though scant and very few,
Yet even in this have we forsaken you?

Must we forever be denied man’s right,
Because our skins, by nature, are not light?
If color for true manhood is the test,
Why were we called to battle with the rest?

We do not ask removal from our sphere,
Our race, our kin are to our hearts most dear;
Within this land, together and as friend,
We only seek the chance, the rights of men.

We long no more to hear the din of mobs:
We long no more to hear the victim’s sobs;
When justice, love, our laws begin to sway,
Then for us will have dawned that brighter day.

In right triumphant, we would not lose faith.
We would believe in all our Savior saith,
Yet through these years of pain and hate unjust,
Twelve million cry, hast Thou forsaken us?

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.

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 Negro’s Getting Tired (1917)

R. P. Player; Chicago Defender, September 22, 1917

[missing lines will be filled in]

I see ten thousand restless souls
Give up their daily toil;
I hear ten million voices speak
As if in great turmoil.
The nation’s asking why this stir,
And why this host’s all fired;
The answer comes from far and near,
The Negro’s getting tired.

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Realizations (1918)

Orlando C. W. Taylor (New Orleans); Chicago Defender, February 2, 1918

To the dreamer, alone, though the crowd was dense,
Came dreams of a fortune great–
The liveried servant, the mansion tall,
The gold, the silver plate.
Then he awoke to the world of things,
And dreaming did eschew;
He hid himself in a mass of work,
And lo! his dreams came true.

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