T. Thomas Fortune [The Outlook]; Chicago Defender, April 9, 1921

What is the Black Man's Burden,
  "Ye hypocrites and vile,"
"Ye whited sepulchers,"
  From th' Amazon to the Nile?
What is the Black Man's Burden,
  Ye Gentile parasites,
Who crush and rob your brother
  Of his manhood and his rights?

What is the Black Man's Burden,
  Westward to Eastward Ind,
But Japhet's broken pledges--
  Faithless Master of his kind?
He robbed Ham of his manhood,
  His brotherhood he's slain,
His woman he has raped,
  Her children sold for gain!

He got them in the darkness--
  He shuns them in the light--
The children of "the first fruits,"
  The "off-ends," of his might!
The Lord-Masters shall perish,
  The unnatural parents die,
Because they wronged the widow
  And th' widow's son deny!

White Christians of the nations,
  Ye slumber in the light,
But the Father of us all
  Shall rouse ye in the night!
The God who rules the Nations,
  "O, Hypocrites and vile!"
Shall search ye out as serpents
  And blast ye in your guile.

What is the Black Man's Burden,
  Westward to Eastward Ind,
But Japhets's broken pledges--
  Faithless Master of his kind?
But, now, the even cometh;
  The even now is here;
And all the Christian Nations
  Are rived with dread and fear.

[This poem is in two categories: "Injustices and Barriers" and "Hope and the Future"]