J. Riley Dungee; Houston Informer, April 14, 1931
With rumors of revolting crime,
The public is enraged;
And in its retribution is
Indignantly engaged.
The despicable criminal
Conceived his guilt and hid it
Behind the sordid sentiment,
“Of course, a Negro did it.”
William H. Maxwell; New York Amsterdam News, May 28, 1930
Cruel and cold is Old Man Lynch,
Brutal beyond compare;
Devoid of reason, Old Man Lynch,
Leading mobs that do not care.
Josie D. Heard; Colored American Magazine, April 1907:
“There’s a Samson lying, sleeping in the land,
He shall soon awake and with avenging hand,
In an all unlooked for hour,
He will rise in mighty power;
What dastard can his righteous rage withstand?
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!
no author; New York Age, October 14, 1914:
RUSTEM BEY, RUSTEM BEY,
A week ago you sailed away,
Before you left you had your say:
They seemed to think you quite too perky.
J. Aubrey Carpenter (Lincoln University, PA, April 1919); Philadelphia Tribune, July 10, 1920:
You who fought the Hun “over there”
On the shores of No-man’s Land,
Have now returned to your native soil
With honor and glory in hand.
Claude McKay (in Associate Negro Press story about Charles Chaplin, who writes, “Reading a few of his gems, my annoyances seem puny and almost childish”); Philadelphia Tribune, November 12, 1921
His spirit in smoke ascended to high Heaven.
His Father by the cruelest way of pain,
Had bidden him to His bosom once again;
The awful sin remained still unforgiven.
no author; Pittsburgh Courier, February 9, 1929:
I am a Negro
Black like Ham, I’m told,
But ‘neath the black skin that covers me
Lies an unconquerable soul.
I am a Negro,
Once a slave, I sang and prayed [?]
Tho’ ‘neath cursed lashes that scarred me
I arose with a soul uncowered.
I am a Negro,
Tho’ lynched and justice from me jade,
Future years with all its torturing hell
Will find me marching upward, UNDISMAYED.
Lewis H. Henderson, Songs from a Littered Desk; Pittsburgh Courier, June 21, 1930
(with acknowledgment to Geo. W. Little)
Flying down the road, blood lust in its eyes,
Bearing high a grisly load, mouthing fiendish cries,
The mob, spirit of the beast, rushes to its awful feast
By Lewis Henderson, Songs from a Littered Desk; Pittsburgh Courier, March 1, 1930
Sombre and dim, was the light of the moon,
And the stars ceased to twinkle and glow,
For the moon and the stars with a pitying gaze
Were waiting, and watching below.
