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
Tag Archives: mob
Hell’s for Rent (1930)
J. Riley Dungee, for the A.N.P; Pittsburgh Courier, October 11, 1930
Hark, Fellow Citizens of hell, Hear ye in my doleful story-- How Mississippi's filched my fame And gone off with my glory. In unexcelled malignity I heretofore held away, 'Til Mississippi raped my role And took my rank away.
In diabolic cruelty, I mastered all the while, But Mississippi savagery Has got me skint a mile. Beside a Mississippi snob I look like Abraham, Beside a Mississippi Mob This camp don't count a damn.
The patronage of former time No longer I command. For friends have found a fouler clime In Mississippi Land. Now I am Mississippi bound, My prestige to reclaim, To set up my dominion there And resurrect my fame.
It's too infernal holy here, It ain't like home no more; So hell's for rent, and I am bent For Mississippi's shore. This fiend-forsaked synagogue Will drive a demon dippy, I've got to quit this pious pit, I'm bound for Mississippi.
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.
Columbia’s Disgrace (1903)
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!
Malediction (1930)
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
