Chas. Fred White; Afro-American, September 1900
O, country, 'tis of thee,
Land of the Lynching Bee,
Of thee I sing.
How long will this base wrong
Pollute thy freedom's song?
Perpetrated by a throng
Of heartless fiends.
Category Archives: Poetry
An Apostrophe to the Lynched (1916)
Leila Amos Pendleton; Crisis, 1916
Hang there, O my murdered brothers, sons of Ethiopia, our common Mother! Hang there, with faces upturned, mutely calling down vengeance from the Most High God!
Children of the Sun (1913)
Fenton Johnson; Crisis, December 1913
I.
We are children of the sun,
Rising sun!
Weaving a Southern destiny,
Waiting for the mighty hour
When our Shiloh shall appear
With the flaming sword of right,
With the steel of brotherhood,
And emboss in crimson die
Liberty! Fraternity!
Negro Philosophy (1929)
The Deacon [E.C. Jennings]; California Eagle, October 11, 1929
[part of a series]
Why spend any money
Sending missionaries abroad
To teach the happy heathen
How to serve our Lord.
With a Bible in one hand
And a sword in the other
We rob him of his birth-right
And then call him brother.
White Thing (1922)
Anne Spencer; Crisis, March 1922 (CHECK)
Most things are colorful things–the sky, earth, and sea.
Black men are most men; but the white are free!
Our Boys (1917)
Clara M. Marcelle Bramlette (Chicago); Chicago Defender, September 22, 1917
Uncle Sam is calling us to fight. See[?] "Our gallant boys" are rallying, one and all: Even though they're often CHEATED of their right-- They are willing to obey their country's call!
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.
Justice (In the South) (1918)
Edna Perry Booth (Brooklyn, NY); Chicago Defender, February 2, 1918
“They have taken my boy a prisoner;
My boy, who is all my pride.
Who when only a little shaver,
Stood close at my knee and cried
Because he had found in the meadow,
Near the edge of the bubbling spring,
A bird, with its breast all crimsoned,
And a pitiful broken wing.
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.
Fred Alexander’s Fate (1901)
Alexander W. Curtis Jr. (Chicago); Indianapolis Freeman, March 9, 1901
In that dreadful, cursed Sunflower State,
A Negro met an undeserving fate,
By the hands of a cowardly, cut-throat band,
Who desires to exterminate the Negroes in this land.
