Jessie Redmon Fauset: Nostalgia
Lonely log cabin
On the road to Notasulga,
Sighing and sagging and quaking;
Let me breathe to the heart of your walls
A secret—
Langston Hughes: Let America Be America Again
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Helene Johnson: Invocation
Let me be buried in the rainIn a deep, dripping wood,Under the warm wet breast of EarthWhere once a gnarled tree stood.And paint a picture on my tombWith dirt and … Continue reading
Jean Toomer: Banking Coal
Somehow the fire was furnaced,
And then the time was ripe for some to say,
“Right banking of the furnace saves the coal.”
I’ve seen them set to work, each in his way
Claude McKay: Harlem Shadows
Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet
Go prowling through the night from street to street!
Claude McKay: The Lynching
The ghastly body swaying in the sun:
The women thronged to look, but never a one
Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue
Claude McKay: December, 1919
‘Tis ten years since you died, mother,
Just ten dark years of pain,
And oh, I only wish that I
Could weep just once again.
Clarissa Scott Delany: Joy
Joy shakes me like the wind that lifts a sail…
Claude McKay: America
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests … Continue reading
Claude McKay: Dawn in New York
The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes Out of the low still skies, over the hills, Manhattan’s roofs and spires and cheerless domes! The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit … Continue reading
