Geraldine M. Campbell [?]; Chicago Defender, July 21, 1917
To the God of all the heaven, to the God of just and right,
To the God of strength and power, to the God of wield and might,
To the God of ever nation, every country, every creed,
To the God that keeps a record of every act, and every deed,
Dost Thou hear our cries and groanings,
Dost Thou know our pains and moanings?
How much longer must we wait?
Paul Lawrence Dunbar [from Century Magazine]; Cleveland Gazette, February 22, 1902
Pray why are you so bare,
O bough of the old oak-tree;
And why, when I go through the shade you throw,
Runs a shudder over me? Continue reading
No author; Cleveland Gazette, May 12, 1906
In the state of old Missouri,
With their breath of whiskey strong;
Did they lynch three innocent Negroes
Who were guilty of no wrong.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
