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If you ask a Negro where he's been, he'll tell you where he's going.

African American proverbs
Added by Lucian Velea
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Lynching

Have you ever heard of lynching in the great United States?
'Tis an awful, awful story that the Negro man relates,
How the mobs the laws have trampled, both the human and divine,
In their killing helpless people as their cruel hearts incline.

Not the heathen! 'Tis the Christian with the Bible in his hand,
Stands for pain and death to tyrannize the weaklings of the land;
Not the red man nor the Spaniard kills the blacks of Uncle Sam,
'Tis the white man of the nation who will lunch the sons of Ham.

To a limb upon the highway does a Negro's body hang,
Riddled with a hundred bullets from the bloody, thirsty gang;
Law and order thus defying, and there's none to say them nay.
"Thus," they say, to keep their power, "Negroes must be kept at bay."

How his back is lacerated! how the scene is painted red,
By the blood of one poor Negro till he numbers with the dead!
Listen to the cry of anguish from a soul that God has made,
But it fails to reach the pity of the demons in the raid.

To a tree we find the Negro and to him a chain beside,
There a horse to it is fastened and the whip to him applied.
Thus he pulls the victim's body till it meets a dying fate,
And to history is given a new scandal to relate.

Limb from limb he's torn asunder! See the savage lynchers grin!
Then the flesh is cut in pieces and the souvenirs begin;
Each must have the piece allotted for the friends at home to see,
Relatives will cluster round him, laughing, dancing, filled with glee.

To a stake they bind the Negro, pile the trash around him high,
Make the fire about his body; it is thus that he must die.
Burn him slowly, hear the lynchers: "That's the part we most enjoy!
Tell it out in all the nation how we killed a Negro boy!"

Savage mob a Negro's chasing, and to catch him must not fail;
If it does, another's taken, there to force from him the tale
Where the fleeing man is hiding; if the facts he cannot raise,
Though his innocence protesting, for the same by death he pays.

"'Tis a Negro's blood we're craving; such will have at any cost;
We must lynch the one in keeping, for the other one is lost!"
This they say, and when they're questioned answer like this is the why,
"To the race at large a warning here a Negro man shall die!"

O, how brave the Southern white man when, a hundred men to one,
Lynch a lone, defenceless Negro, when each lyncher has a gun.
If at midnight or the noonday, the result is all the same,
Law is powerless to hinder, and the nation shares the blame.

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poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Immorality

Have you heard, my friend, the slander that the Negro has to face?
Immorality, the grossest, has been charged up to his race.
Listen, listen to my story, as I now proceed to tell
Of conditions in the Southland, where the mass of Negroes dwell.

Ev'ry city, town or county, ev'ry state on Southern soil,
Has mulattoes in its borders, found among the sons of toil.
Can you tell from whence they landed; or to whither shall they go?
Is the Negro race responsible alone, I'd like to know?

When a man among the Negroes is the least suspected there
Of an intimate relation with a daughter that is fair,
Then an angry mob arises and he answers for the same
In a death, the worst in cruelty the company can name.

Though the noonday sun is shining at the time the lynching's done,
Still the officers of justice can't detect a single one,
Who partook in Negro killing, for the deed no one is blamed,
And inside the nation's senate comes a voice, 'We're not ashamed.'

Is the same true when a white man leads a Negro girl astray?
When he takes away her virtue, is the same true? tell me, pray,
Do the press and pulpit clamor or condemn the mighty wrong?
Is there sentiment against it? is the burden of my song.

When the case is thus presented, they are silent as the grave,
And the law at once is powerless a Negro's name to save,
So you see the same continues and the truth is like a flood,
That in veins of Southern Negroes flow the best of Southern blood.

Can you tell of these mulattoes, did they fall here from the sky?
How is this that they're among us? can you tell the reason why?
Who's to blame for their existence? is the Negro race alone?
If there are such freaks in nature it is time to make them known.

'Tis a custom born of slavery when master's law and might,
Was enforced upon the bondsman without question of the right,
And the parson preached on Sunday how the servant should obey
All the mandates of the master, let them be whate'er they may.

O, how sad the tales of bondage when persuasive measures failed,
How they tortured Negro women till their hellish plans prevailed!
Women faithful to their virtue were as martyrs sent to rest,
Others yielded to the tempter, weary, helpless and distressed.

So the spirit lives at present for the master hand to rule,
Cook or washer, nurse or housemaid passes through this training school,
Lo! the greatest of temptations, men and devils there invent,
And present them to the servants, on their ruin so intent.

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poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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I'll Do My Best To Deliver

Ask me for what you want.
Just ask me,
Ask me.
And make it anything,
You need...
From me.

Ask me for what you want.
Ask me for what you need,
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.

Ask me for what you want.
Just ask me.
Ask me.
Ask me for anything,
And I will fullfill...
That need.

Ask me for what you want.
Ask me for what you need,
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.

Oh ask me for what you want.
Ask me for what you need,
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.
And I will do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.
And I will do my best to deliver.

Just ask me for what you want.
Just ask me for what you need,
And I will do my best to deliver.

Come thunderstorms, rain or shine...
That pressure you have will be taken right off your mind.
I will do my best to deliver.
Just ask me...

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poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Jim Crow Cars

If within the cruel Southland you have chanced to take a ride,
You the Jim Crow cars have noticed, how they crush a Negro's pride,
How he pays a first class passage and a second class receives,
Gets the worst accommodations ev'ry friend of truth believes.

'Tis the rule that all conductors, in the service of the train,
Practice gross discriminations on the Negro—such is plain—
If a drunkard is a white man, at his mercy Negroes are,
Legalized humiliation is the Negro Jim Crow car.

'Tis a license given white men, they may go just where they please,
In the white man's car or Negro's will they move with perfect ease,
If complaint is made by Negroes the conductor will go out
Till the whites are through carousing, then he shows himself about.

They will often raise a riot, butcher up the Negroes there,
Unmolested will they quarrel, use their pistols,rant and swear,
They will smoke among the ladies though offensive the cigar;
'Tis the place to drink their whiskey, in the Negro Jim Crow car.

If a Negro shows resistance to his treatment by a tough,
At some station he's arrested for the same, though not enough,
He is thrashed or lynched or tortured as will please the demon's rage,
Mobbed, of course, by 'unknown parties,' thus is closed the darkened page.

If a lunatic is carried, white or black, it is the same,
Or a criminal is taken to the prison-house in shame,
In the Negro car he's ushered with the sheriff at his side,
Out of deference for white men in their car he scorns to ride.

We despise a Negro's manhood, says the Southland, and expect,
All supremacy for white men—black men's rights we'll not protect,
This the Negro bears with patience for the nation bows to might,
Wrong has borne aloft its colors disregarding what is right.

This is called a Christian nation, but we fail to understand,
How the teachings of the Bible can with such a system band;
Purest love that knows no evil can alone the story tell,
How to banish such abuses, how to treat a neighbor well.

poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Prejudice

How strangely blind is prejudice, the Negro's greatest foe!
It never fails to see the wrong but naught of good can know.
'Tis blind to all that's lofty, yea, to truth it is opposed,
Degrading things will ope his eyes, while good will keep them closed.

How cruel, too, is prejudice! how wicked is the tongue!
The evils reign supremely there, the bad is ever sung;
With some the Negro needs a soul, with others he's a brute,
In silence those remaining live and naught of this dispute.

The schools it legislates against, in keeping Negroes down,
Whatever tends to elevate it meets it with a frown.
It gives to them the Jim Crow car and vessels on the sea;
It makes the stockade to exist and take their liberty.

It makes the press to vacillate up the Negro's name,
The pulpit makes a compromise with evil, for the same,
It makes the Pharaohs of today and seals them with its ban,
It strives to close the door of hope upon the Negro man.

It causes mobs to formulate, to come and go at will,
At morning, evening, noon or night, a Negro man to kill,
It brings injustice to the courts when Negro men are tried,
It wrings the ballot from their hands—a thousand wrongs beside.

It is the country's greatest curse, the nation's open sore,
It slowly saps the precious life, is poison to the core,
Such ravages gave certain death to nations in the past,
The same will lay this country low, its fondest hopes will blast.

It minimizes all that's good and magnifies the ill,
The devil's mission upon earth, it clamors to fulfill;
'Twas prejudice that caused the death of Christ upon the tree,
He knows the pangs that Negroes feel and gives them sympathy.

When men refuse to see the light a darkness is assured,
Such blindness comes upon the scene as never can be cured!
Contagious is the dread disease, for Negroes learn to view
The white man with suspicious eyes, but here's a thing that's new.

The Negro Problem of the land, and all the same entails,
Will be no more whene'er we find a sentiment prevails,
To bury prejudice so deep it never can arise
Till all the races of the earth shall meet above the skies.

Twas God who made the Negro black, the reasons are His own
One blood the nations all the same, the facts are too well known,
He also made the Golden Rule, to use the neighbor well,
Shall prejudice among us dwell forever? who can tell?

poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Toussaint L’Ouverture

'T WAS night. The tranquil moonlight smile
With which Heaven dreams of Earth, shed down
Its beauty on the Indian isle, —
On broad green field and white-walled town;
And inland waste of rock and wood,
In searching sunshine, wild and rude,
Rose, mellowed through the silver gleam,
Soft as the landscape of a dream.
All motionless and dewy wet,
Tree, vine, and flower in shadow met:
The myrtle with its snowy bloom,
Crossing the nightshade's solemn gloom, —
The white cecropia's silver rind
Relieved by deeper green behind,
The orange with its fruit of gold,
The lithe paullinia's verdant fold,
The passion-flower, with symbol holy,
Twining its tendrils long and lowly,
The rhexias dark, and cassia tall,
And proudly rising over all,
The kingly palm's imperial stem,.
Crowned with its leafy diadem,
Star-like, beneath whose sombre shade,
The fiery-winged cucullo played!
How lovely was thine aspect, then,
Fair island of the Western Sea!
Lavish of beauty, even whe
Thy brutes were happier than thy men,
For they, at least, were free!
Regardless of thy glorious clime,
Unmindful of thy soil of flowers,
The toiling negro sighed, that Time
No faster sped his hours.
For, by the dewy moonlight still,
He fed the weary-turning mill,
Or bent him in the chill morass,
To pluck the long and tangled grass,
And hear above his scar-worn back
The heavy slave-whip's frequent crack:
While in his heart one evil thought
In solitary madness wrought,
One baleful fire surviving still
The quenching of the immortal mind,
One sterner passion of his kind,
Which even fetters could not kill,
The savage hope, to deal, erelong,
A vengeance bitterer than his wrong!
Hark to that cry! long, loud, and shrill,
From field and forest, rock and hill,
Thrilling and horrible it rang,

[...] Read more

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Dog

THE key, which opes the chest of hoarded gold.
Unlocks the heart that favours would withhold.
To this the god of love has oft recourse,
When arrows fail to reach the secret source,
And I'll maintain he's right, for, 'mong mankind,
Nice presents ev'ry where we pleasing find;
Kings, princes, potentates, receive the same,
And when a lady thinks she's not to blame,
To do what custom tolerates around;
When Venus' acts are only Themis' found,
I'll nothing 'gainst her say; more faults than one,
Besides the present, have their course begun.

A MANTUAN judge espoused a beauteous fair:
Her name was Argia:--Anselm was her care,
An aged dotard, trembling with alarms,
While she was young, and blessed with seraph charms.
But, not content with such a pleasing prize,
His jealousy appeared without disguise,
Which greater admiration round her drew,
Who doubtless merited, in ev'ry view,
Attention from the first in rank or place
So elegant her form, so fine her face.

'TWOULD endless prove, and nothing would avail,
Each lover's pain minutely to detail:
Their arts and wiles; enough 'twill be no doubt,
To say the lady's heart was found so stout,
She let them sigh their precious hours away,
And scarcely seemed emotion to betray.

WHILE at the judge's, Cupid was employed,
Some weighty things the Mantuan state annoyed,
Of such importance, that the rulers meant,
An embassy should to the Pope be sent.
As Anselm was a judge of high degree,
No one so well embassador could be.

'TWAS with reluctance he agreed to go,
And be at Rome their mighty Plenipo';
The business would be long, and he must dwell
Six months or more abroad, he could not tell.
Though great the honour, he should leave his dove,
Which would be painful to connubial love.
Long embassies and journeys far from home
Oft cuckoldom around induce to roam.

THE husband, full of fears about his wife;
Exclaimed--my ever--darling, precious life,
I must away; adieu, be faithful pray,

[...] Read more

poem by La Fontaine
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Injustice of the Courts

Whites alone upon the jury in a number of the states,
Thus they crush a helpless Negro with their prejudicial hates;
Legal ills they thrust upon him, and the tale is passing sad—
Equal rights with white men? Never! Color-phobia makes them mad.

'Tis the training of the children, every Negro to suppress,
They their spleen may vent upon him and he happy, none the less,
They will boast aloud in anger if by Negroes they are crossed,
'If we shoot or kill a Negro, not a cent will be the cost.'

Juries represent the people and their sentiments make known,
When a Negro comes in question there's discrimination shown.
They are bold to make assertion that they will not do the same
For a Negro as a white man, and no feeling comes of shame.

Jurymen have made confession after trial had been made
Of a Negro, and 'He's guilty!' was the verdict there displayed.
Stern remorse so touched the conscience, they the story did relate,
How the verdict they had rendered was to stay the dying fate.

'It was hard to say him guilty, for the man, we thought, was clear.
But a mob was making clamors that were terrible to hear.'
'Punishment or death!' it shouted, and around began to press;
And of two impending evils, we have chosen him the less.

Thus we legalized the lynchers, we their words to court have brought,
And the innocent convicted! how revolting is the thought!
When a mob has forced a jury to a stand against the right,
All the waters of the ocean cannot make the conscience white.

Once a Negro girl was saucy, and the wife the husband told,
Who in haste arraigned the servant and began to swear and scold.
Then he whipped her without mercy—straightway she to law applied.
Passing strange—they found him guilty, and the judge was sorely tried.
This he said, in making sentence, 'No disfavor comes to you,
You have only done as others, or as I myself would do,
If your servants vex the mistress, thrash them out again, I say,
Go to jail ten minutes only, and a fine of five cents pay!'
If a judge is conscientious, then the people vote him out,
His partiality to white men they must know, beyond a doubt.
No equality for Negroes in the law the world must know,
If he fails to make distinctions, from the bench they'll have him go.
Page 45
This injustice is a cancer, in the nation's breast it lives,
Quietly and unmolested, awful is the death it gives.
It results from color-phobia, which the God of right defies,
Slaves of prejudice, take warning! pause before the nation dies.
All the land is running riot, laws are trampled in the face,
Negroes must be law-abiding; whites alone the laws debase.

[...] Read more

poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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The Negro Schools

Please be silent now, my country, while I fill the speaker's place;
While I point out some abuses that we constantly embrace,
Listen with your best attention to the words that I shall say,
How the Negro schools are managed, in this Commonwealth today.

All the officers are white men and together they conspire,
To undo the schools for Negroes, of such deeds they never tire;
Oft we find among the trustees men who cannot read a word,
But when speaking of the Negro, they are certain to be heard.

Education for the Negro they discourage, and they say,
'It will bring dissatisfaction to such people ev'ry day,
Make them crave for something higher, such as white men should enjoy,
Which will spoil the other Negroes that we have in our employ.'

Shorter terms are recommended many times as low as two
Are the months to Negroes given, in a year—now this is true,
Longer terms the whites are given in the same communities—
They conform to such a standard of the right with perfect ease.

Poorer pay to Negro teachers, driving good ones from the field,
Schools are let to lowest bidders to the same they're forced to yield,
Higher pay and better teachers for the white schools is the cry.
While encouragement is given Negro schools to starve and die.

Rural libraries established for the whites on ev'ry side,
But when application's made for Negro schools it is denied,
Thus they deal with education for the mass of Negro youth,
Posing still as great exponents and conservers of the truth.

From the sword of fierce Goliath we may all a lesson learn,
How while planning death to others on your head it may return,
In regard to schools for Negroes, cease their welfare to neglect,
For the same will come upon you in a way you least expect.

poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Y

Don't ask us Y!
We do the things that we do
Don't ask us Y!
We feel the same as you
Don't ask us Y!
Life can be so damn cruel
Don't ask us Y!
It's all been decided for you
Pure soul first breath is filled with sin
A young child just born quit suffering
A mother's greed, get high, chasin' ghosts again
This will happen over and over again!
Don't ask us Y!
We do the things that we do
Don't ask us Y!
We feel the same as you
Don't ask us Y!
Life can be so damn cruel
Don't ask us Y!
It's all been decided for you
I look into your eyes, I feel your pain, life's insane
I'm gonna do my best to try again and live again
I know we're all the same, we live our lives it's like a game
And still we do it over and over again!
Don't ask us Y!
We do the things that we do
Don't ask us Y!
We feel the same as you
Don't ask us Y!
Life can be so damn cruel
Don't ask us Y!
It's all been decided for you
First communion done, now your life has just begun
Second plot the whole world is looking with a gun
Another child will do it when he's on the run
The vicious circle of life has just begun!
Don't ask us Y!
We do the things that we do!
Don't ask us Y!
We feel the same as you!
Don't ask us Y!
Life can be sooo cruel!
Don't ask us Y!
It's all been decided for you!
Don't ask us Y!
We feel the same as you
Don't ask us Y!
Life can be so damn cruel
Don't ask us Y!
It's all been decided for you

[...] Read more

song performed by Zug Izland
Added by Lucian Velea
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Canto the Fifth

I
When amatory poets sing their loves
In liquid lines mellifluously bland,
And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves,
They little think what mischief is in hand;
The greater their success the worse it proves,
As Ovid's verse may give to understand;
Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due severity,
Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.

II
I therefore do denounce all amorous writing,
Except in such a way as not to attract;
Plain -- simple -- short, and by no means inviting,
But with a moral to each error tack'd,
Form'd rather for instructing than delighting,
And with all passions in their turn attack'd;
Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod ill,
This poem will become a moral model.

III
The European with the Asian shore
Sprinkled with palaces; the ocean stream
Here and there studded with a seventy-four;
Sophia's cupola with golden gleam;
The cypress groves; Olympus high and hoar;
The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream,
Far less describe, present the very view
Which charm'd the charming Mary Montagu.

IV
I have a passion for the name of "Mary,"
For once it was a magic sound to me;
And still it half calls up the realms of fairy,
Where I beheld what never was to be;
All feelings changed, but this was last to vary,
A spell from which even yet I am not quite free:
But I grow sad -- and let a tale grow cold,
Which must not be pathetically told.

V
The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave
Broke foaming o'er the blue Symplegades;
'T is a grand sight from off the Giant's Grave
To watch the progress of those rolling seas
Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave
Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease;
There's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in,
Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine.

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Don Juan: Canto The Fifth

When amatory poets sing their loves
In liquid lines mellifluously bland,
And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves,
They little think what mischief is in hand;
The greater their success the worse it proves,
As Ovid's verse may give to understand;
Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due severity,
Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.

I therefore do denounce all amorous writing,
Except in such a way as not to attract;
Plain- simple- short, and by no means inviting,
But with a moral to each error tack'd,
Form'd rather for instructing than delighting,
And with all passions in their turn attack'd;
Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod ill,
This poem will become a moral model.

The European with the Asian shore
Sprinkled with palaces; the ocean stream
Here and there studded with a seventy-four;
Sophia's cupola with golden gleam;
The cypress groves; Olympus high and hoar;
The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream,
Far less describe, present the very view
Which charm'd the charming Mary Montagu.

I have a passion for the name of 'Mary,'
For once it was a magic sound to me;
And still it half calls up the realms of fairy,
Where I beheld what never was to be;
All feelings changed, but this was last to vary,
A spell from which even yet I am not quite free:
But I grow sad- and let a tale grow cold,
Which must not be pathetically told.

The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave
Broke foaming o'er the blue Symplegades;
'T is a grand sight from off 'the Giant's Grave
To watch the progress of those rolling seas
Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave
Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease;
There 's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in,
Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine.

'T was a raw day of Autumn's bleak beginning,
When nights are equal, but not so the days;
The Parcae then cut short the further spinning
Of seamen's fates, and the loud tempests raise
The waters, and repentance for past sinning

[...] Read more

poem by Byron
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The Negro Boy

Paupertas onus visa est grave.

Cold blows the wind, and while the tear
Bursts trembling from my swollen eyes,
The rain's big drop, quick meets it there,
And on my naked bosom flies!
O pity, all ye sons of Joy,
The little wand'ring Negro-boy.

These tatter'd clothes, this ice-cold breast
By Winter harden'd into steel,
These eyes, that know not soothing rest,
But speak the half of what I feel!
Long, long, I never new one joy,
The little wand'ring Negro-boy!

Cannot the sigh of early grief
Move but one charitable mind?
Cannot one hand afford relief?
One Christian pity, and be kind?
Weep, weep, for thine was never joy,
O little wand'ring Negro-boy!

Is there a good which men call Pleasure?
O Ozmyn, would that it were thine!
Give me this only precious treasure;
How it would soften grief like mine!
Then Ozmyn might be call'd, with joy,
The little wand'ring Negro-boy!

My limbs these twelve long years have borne
The rage of ev'ry angry wind:
Yet still does Ozmyn weep and mourn,
Yet still no ease, no rest can find!
Then death, alas, must soon destroy
The little wand'ring Negro-boy!

No sorrow e'er disturbs the rest,
That dwells within the lonely grave;
Thou best resource, the wo-wrung breast
E'er ask'd of Heav'n, or Heav'n e'er gave!
Ah then, farewell, vain world, with joy
I die the happy Negro-boy!

poem by James Henry Leigh Hunt
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Loyalty to the Flag

In the love of home and country and the flag of Uncle Sam,
Can the loyalty be doubted of a dusky son of Ham?
Wheresoever duty calls him, as a freedman or a slave,
The response is ever hearty when 'Old Glory' he would save.

'Twas the war of Revolution, when a Negro's blood was first,
To be shed for independence, when a yoke the land had cursed;
Crispus Attucks died in Boston, on State street he paid the debt,
Liberty his blood has planted and the tree is growing yet.

Ask the spirit of Pitcairn how he came to meet his death?
Where and who it was that brought him down to breathe the dying breath?
'Twas the Negro Salem's bullet at the charge of Bunker's Hill,
Bringing to the whites their freedom but to Negroes naught but ill.

In the battle of New Orleans, eighteen fourteen was the year,
When the Negro fought with valor till the victory was clear;
Jackson paid this glowing tribute—may the spirit never lag—
'None more strong and none more useful, none more loyal to the flag.'

O, how brave the Negro soldiers when the Civil war was fought!
Shall they fight such noble battles in the nation's cause for naught?
Hark! the battle cry of Charleston! at Fort Wagner is the place!
At Port Hudson and Fort Pillow how the rebel guns they face!

Fifty-fourth of Massachusetts—may such regiments be praised—
By its valor at Fort Wagner, North and South became amazed!
Hall began as color-bearer but was killed on duty grand,
To the spot went William Carney and the colors took in hand.

Wounded many times was Carney, shot in head, in arm and thigh,
On one knee he fell and crawling kept the colors flying high,
Blood upon the banner streaming while his words the action crowned;
'Boys I've kept aloft 'Old Glory' and it never touched the ground!'

Colonel Stafford was disabled, Dwight his men to battle led,
With great feeling at New Orleans, Stafford to the sergeant said,
'Guard, protect defend these colors,' 'Yes,' he answered, 'though I die
I will bring them back in honor or to God report the why.'

All the world has heard the story of the Cuban war with Spain,
Ah! the sound of Negro valor falls upon the ear again,
At Elkaney and San Juan how they helped to win the day,
Near the town of Santiago, held the enemy at bay!

Side by side with other soldiers being in complexion white,
Negroes died to take San Juan in the thickest of the fight,
Thus they gained the worthy plaudit from the loyal, brave and true;
'Negroes on the field of battle, dignify the nation's blue.'

[...] Read more

poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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The Eutawville Lynching

(July, 1904)

In the State of 'Old Palmetto,' from the town of Eutawville,
Comes a voice of pain and anguish that refuses to be still.
'Tis a voice that cries for vengeance for the wrongs it has received,
Yea, it asks a nation's conscience, When will justice be achieved?

'Twas a Negro and four white men that a fishing-party made,
In this party all the basis of a tragedy was laid,
One of them began a quarrel with the Negro of the crowd,
Told him not to think of justice, for to him 'twas disallowed.

Then they all began to curse him, in a shameful way to see,
Till the Negro said, 'I'll spank you, if you do not let me be!'
For this threat he was arrested, and for trial was arraigned,
And it goes without the saying, it was by the white man gained.

So Kitt Bookard there was sentenced, for that was the Negro's name,
To a fine of just five dollars, and condemned with all the blame.
When the fine he could not furnish, in the guard-house he was placed,
There in safety for the lynchers, who that night the town disgraced.

With the constable to help them and the marshall of the town,
Went the wicked fishing-party to the guard-house, with a frown;
They procured a bar of iron, gagged and tied Kitt Bookard fast,
And they took him in a buggy to the river, for the last.

'Say your prayers,' the lynchers told him, 'for to Jordan you have come,
Be in haste, for hour of midnight brings you to your final home.'
'If you'll spare me,' said Kitt Bookard, 'I will be your slave for life.'
'Speak no more,' the mob retorted, 'with your blood will end the strife.'

He was clubbed and mutilated, then the fiends put out his eye—
Any mob of heathen darkness would such shameful deeds decry—
Then with weights about his body, in the river he was cast,
Where his blood cried out for vengeance till a week and more had passed.

Bookard's family was anxious to procure him his release,
Through the night his wife was restless, and from worry could not cease.
At the dawn his brother hastened, 'I will pay the fine,' he said,
But he found the guard-house empty and as quiet as the dead.

Quick a search was instituted, all the Negroes,round about,
Volunteered into the service, bound to clear the place of doubt.
In the night a rain had fallen and no stirring round was done,
Save a buggy-track was leading from the guard-house—only one.

Hurriedly the track was followed to the Santee River's brink,
And a dredging was decided when the Negroes came to think.

[...] Read more

poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Ch 01 Manner of Kings Story 40

A Chinese slave-girl having been brought to a king, he desired to have connection with her whilst in a state of intoxication but, as she repelled him, he became angry and presented her to one of his negro-slaves whose upper lip was higher than his nostrils whilst the lower one hung down to his neck. His stature was such that the demon Sakhrah would have been put to flight and a fountain of pitch emitted stench from his armpits.

Thou wouldst say that, till the resurrection, ugliness
Is his stamp as that of Joseph was beauty.
His person was of so wretched an aspect
That his ugliness surpassed all description
And from his armpits we take refuge with Allah,
They were like a corpse in the month of Merdad.

At that time the desire of the negro was libidinous, his lust overcame him, his love leapt up and he took off the seal of her virginity. In the morning the king sought the girl but could not find her and, having obtained information of what had taken place, he became angry, ordered the negro and the girl to be firmly tied together by their hands and feet and to be thrown from the lofty building into a ditch. One of the veziers, placing the face of intercession upon the ground, pleaded that there was no guilt in the negro since all the servants of his majesty usually receive presents and benefits as he had received the girl. The king rejoined: "What would it have mattered if he had for one night delayed his enjoyment?" He said: "My lord, hast thou not heard that it was said:

When a man with a burning thirst reaches a limpid spring,
Think not that he will care for a mad elephant.
When a hungry infidel is in an empty house at table
Reason will not believe that he cares for the Ramazan."

The king, being pleased with this sally, exclaimed: "I make thee a present of the negro. What am I to do with the girl?" He replied: "Give the girl to the negro because that half is also due to a dog of which he has consumed the other half."

The thirsty heart does not wish for limpid water
Half of which was consumed by a fetid mouth.
How can the king’s hand again touch
An orange after it has fallen into dung?

poem by Sa di
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Ask

This is our new single ...
Ask !
Shyness is nice, and
Shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life
That you'd like to
Shyness is nice, and
Shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life
That you'd like to
So, if there's something you'd like to try
If there's something you'd like to try
Ask me - i won't say "no" - how could i ?
Coyness is nice, and
Coyness can stop you
From doing all the things in
Life that you want to
So, if there's something you'd like to try
If there's something you'd like to try
Ask me - i won't say "no" - how could i ?
Spending warm summer days indoors
Writing frightening verse
To a buck-toothed girl in luxembourg
Ask me, ask me, ask me
Ask me, ask me, ask me
Because if it's not love
Then it's the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb
That will bring us together
Nature is a language - can't you read ?
Nature is a language - can anybody read ?
So ... ask me, ask me, ask me
Ask me, ask me, ask me
Because if it's not love
Then it's the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb
That will bring us together
If it's not love
Then it's the bomb
Then it's the bomb
That will bring us together
So ... ask me, ask me, ask me
Ask me, ask me, ask me
Oh, la ...

song performed by Smiths
Added by Lucian Velea
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Ancestral Woman

I was never child
My maternal granny called me an old, old soul
I seen time come and go
I gave birth to giving birth
Ain’t nothin I don’t know

The sun is my shade I pull it down to allow darkness and light
To give birth to the same day, the eternal now

Then, you ask me, as woman
Then, you ask me, as a colored woman
Then, you ask me, as a female
Then, you ask me, as a black female
Then, you ask me, as a Mother
Then, you ask me, as the epitome of androgeny

What is my contribution, evolution ain’t as old
I been in the grave, beyond the grave
I been the grave, I had to brave the newness of oldness

I remember when silence was communication
Being blind the revelation
Not knowing the greatest education
Nothingness the only information

I am the past, my innateness the futre
My being the immediate now
I am the ancient androgenous embryo
I render gender apropos

I survived domestice violence and sexual abuse
Being told I am of no use
Cause I won’t accept yo validation
As my self-reaization

Then, you ask me, as a woman
Then, you ask me, as a colored woman
Then, you ask me, as a female
Then, you ask me, as a black female
Then, you ask me, as a Mother
Then, you ask me, as the epitome of androgeny

What is my contribution, evolution ain’t as old
I been the grave, beyond the grave
I been the grave, I had to brave the newness of oldness

How does it feel being a Woman
It feels like
I Am all, in all, sustain all, absolutely independent of all
My power never diminishes

[...] Read more

poem by Josephine DixonBanks
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The Legend of La Brea

Down beside the loathly Pitch Lake,
In the stately Morichal,
Sat an ancient Spanish Indian,
Peering through the columns tall.

Watching vainly for the flashing
Of the jewelled colibris;
Listening vainly for their humming
Round the honey-blossomed trees.

'Few,' he sighed, 'they come, and fewer,
To the cocorite bowers;
Murdered, madly, through the forests
Which of yore were theirs-and ours

By there came a negro hunter,
Lithe and lusty, sleek and strong,
Rolling round his sparkling eyeballs,
As he loped and lounged along.

Rusty firelock on his shoulder;
Rusty cutlass on his thigh;
Never jollier British subject
Rollicked underneath the sky.

British law to give him safety,
British fleets to guard his shore,
And a square of British freehold-
He had all we have, and more.

Fattening through the endless summer,
Like his own provision ground,
He had reached the summum bonum
Which our latest wits have found.

So he thought; and in his hammock
Gnawed his junk of sugar-cane,
Toasted plantains at the fire-stick,
Gnawed, and dozed, and gnawed again.

Had a wife in his ajoupa -
Or, at least, what did instead;
Children, too, who died so early,
He'd no need to earn their bread.

Never stole, save what he needed,
From the Crown woods round about;
Never lied, except when summoned-
Let the warden find him out.

[...] Read more

poem by Charles Kingsley
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The Southern Press

When a Negro comes in question you may watch the Southern press,
See how bias its opinions, how his ills are given stress,
Prominence is given headlines, when accused he is of crime,
Emphasizes all the evils of the Negro ev'ry time.

If a white man comes in question you may watch the press again,
How its dignity it loses in a compromise with sin,
Down in some secluded corner you the story may behold,
Where the public may not find it, sadly there the tale is told.

It condemns the sins of Negroes which in white men 'twill excuse,
If a Negro's crime is grievous here's the heading it will use:
'He's a candidate for lynching,' in a type that's bold and plain,
If a heinous crime's committed by a white man, 'he's insane.'

When the Negroes prove their manhood and their homes protection give,
They're pronounced as desperadoes and too desperate to live,
Nothing like its ever published of a white man, though his case
May be ten times more revolting and far deeper the disgrace.

At some public place if Negroes are mistreated by the whites,
When policemen won't arrest them or defend a Negro's rights,
Though the proof is overwhelming and the public ear it gains.
How conspicuous the silence that the Southern press maintains.

When a good is done by Negroes of the same you will not hear,
With their ills the press is busy and the good cannot appear,
Wrong, if found upon a Negro, will be charged up to the race,
But if white, with him 'tis ended, brings his people no disgrace.

See! the Southern press is bowing to a god that's made of gold!
And the populace is crying in a way that's passing bold,
'It must run to suit our fancy or the gold we'll take away!'
So the press can rise no higher than the common people say.

Humbleness will be exalted, exaltation be abased,
To the press it sounds a warning blest humility to taste.
Exaltation in a measure waves its banner over all,
But such pride will bring destruction, haughty spirits bring a fall.

poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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