April Is National Poetry Month! 

IN AMERICA

BERNIE CASEY

POET X ARTIST X ACTOR X FORMER NFL PLAYER

he said

in america

would i like california?

in america

is much money?

in america

is large streets

and nice house.

in america

he said.

is good pretty country?

in america

you have indian

who don’t do so good

in america

the black man

is not so free yet, yes?

if in america

you speak of liberty

not for everybody, yes?

i think

in america

is some good

and some not so good

and i said

in america, yes

there is some good

and some not so good.  

April Is National Poetry Month! 

AMERICA

CLAUDE MCKAY

RENOWNED HARLEM RENAISSANCE POET X WRITER

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 my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

 April Is National Poetry Month! 

HYMN TO AMERICA

Published in “The 

Messenger Magazine,” August 

1925.

E. LUCIEN WAITHE

POET 

America I sing to you
A hymn of love mixed with my tears,
A hymn made up of thoughts that spring
From many, many cruel years.

I love you my America
Who would not want to call me yours ;
With all the wrongs that hemmed me in
I stood up to defend your doors.

Before I knew time, place, or scene,
My mother kept before my view
Your emblem lighted with the stars,
Which I still saw there as I grew.

And when I saw out in the bay
Shining above all other glare
The light that burns throughout the night,
I smiled and said I need not fear.

I thought it then a light to love,
To liberty and every good ;
But that was false — a light to hell
I found it soon after I stood

Upon the hill where Life took me
To view the things that are as rare,
To feel the teeth of poverty
And pull at opportunity's bar.

I had high hopes, bright dreams were mine,
A future roseate as the light
That limns the shadows of the hills
Against the sky as dawn grows bright.

Too soon hate's dark eclipse hid all
The brightness of this day of hope;
And your weak pride narrowed and bound
My every effort, every scope.

But still America I lived
Scourged by the jeers, the taunts, the scorn ;
Why should some men inherit love
And some to such strong hate be born ?

America I pay with love
For all the hate you give to me;
I take your jagged-edge cup and drink
The drug of dark hate fearlessly.

I know it can but drug the sense.
And hold ambition to the earth ;
For hate can never conquer me,
Nor wrong rob me of all my mirth.

I shall still cry, shall laugh and play
Until some larger heart should come
To light yours into flames of love
That burn for all and not for some.

And still a dream is in my soul
In which I see you handing me
A golden star of membership
In this great world's fraternity.

Then from the ruins of much wrong,
Within the shining shop of right
I'll forge for you a tower wherefrom
Shall gleam earth's purest brightest light.

Then all the nations of this world
Shall look to you and call you great ;
Because your light shall shine afar

When one large love replaces hate.

April Is National Poetry Month! 

TO AMERICA

Published in "THE CRISIS Magazine," NOVEMBER 

1917.

JAMES WELDON JOHNSON

RENOWNED HARLEM RENAISSANCEX POET X WRITER X 

NOVELIST X ESSAYIST X EDUCATOR X CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST 

X DIPLOMAT X LAWYER X LYRICIST X PLAYWRIGHT 

 

How would you have us, as we are?
Or sinking 'neath the load we bear?
Our eyes fixed forward on a star?
Or gazing empty at despair?

Rising or falling? Men or things?
With dragging pace or footsteps fleet?
Strong, willing sinews in your wings?
Or tightening chains about your feet?

April Is National Poetry Month! 

AMERICA 

Published in "RACE RHYMES" 

in 1911.

CARRIE WILLIAMS CLIFFORD

POET

America is not another name for opportunity
To all her sons! Nay, bid me not be dumb —
I will be heard. Christians, I come
To plead with burning eloquence of truth
A brother's cause; ay, to demand, forsooth,
The manhood rights of which he is denied;
Too long your pretense have your acts belied.
What has he done to merit your fierce hate?
I charge you, speak the truth; for know, his fate
Irrevocably is bound up with yours,
For good or ill, as long as time endures.
Torn from his native home by ruthless hands,
For centuries he tilled your fruitful lands,
In shameful, base, degrading slavery;
Your humble, patient, loyal vassal, he —
Piling your coffers high with magic gold,
Himself, the while, like cattle bought and sold.

When devastating war stalked through the land,
And dangers threatened you on every hand,
These sons whose color you cannot forgive.
Did freely shed their blood that you might live
A nation, strong and great. And will you then
Continue to debase, degrade, contemn
Your loyal children, while with smiling face
You raise disloyal ones to power and place?

Is race or color crime, that for this cause
You draft against the Negro unjust laws?
Is race or color sin that he should be
For these things treated so outrageously?
O, boastful, white American, beware!
It is the handiwork of God you dare
Thus to despise and He will you repay
With generous measure overflowing, yea,
For all the good which in his life you've wrought.
For helpful deed, or kindly, loving thought —
For every act of cruelty you've done,
For every groan which you have from him wrung.
For every infamy by him endured,
He will you all repay, be thou assured!
Not here alone ere time shall cease to be,
But likewise There, through all eternity.

April Is National Poetry Month! 

Plea of The Negro Soldier 

Published in "Springfield Republican," 

Feb. 16, 1907. 

CHARLES FRED WHITE

POET 

America, ungrateful land!
Whose treacherous soil my blood has dyed,
Whose wealth my father's shackled hand
Has hoarded up, who has denied
Me right to live, to vote, to learn,
Whose laws protect me not from wrong,
Who will permit me not to earn
An honest living, who in song
Doth boast a land of freedom, but
Whose flag waves o'er a land of crime,
The makers of whose laws unjust
Themselves are stained with blood and slime
Of murders, lynchings, rape and lies,
And who, while yet the sacred oath
Of office on their vile lips lies,
Will lead a mob of comrades forth
To take some negro, innocent,
Accused perhaps, but never tried,
From custody of government
And burn him, to a pillar tied,
I fear the dawning of thy doom:
I hear the voice of justice cry
From out this wilderness of gloom:
I see the dark clouds in thy sky.
From Boston massacre, my blood
Through all the channels of thy war
Has mingled with thy crimson flood;
Through Yorktown, Erie, Wagner,—far
To El Caney and San Juan Hill,
Where, midst the charges awful din,
With song our voice the air did fill
And make that song a battle hymn.—
The Philippines, so dearly bought,
Are strewn with bodies of my kin;
My comrades have thy glory wrought
In war, in peace, with skill and vim.
'Twas I who rescued from the urn
Of death thy fickle soldier chief;
Tis he who gives me in return
Disgrace, dishonor, no relief
From poverty my feeble years
Must bring me soon; he who deprives
Me of support retirement rears
Up for her faithful soldiers' lives.
My thirty years of living death
In bloody war avail me naught
When prejudice and perjured breath
Of Brownsville 'gainst my name is brought.
And dost thou yet, ungrateful land
Expect my blood and kin to stand
In cowered silence, while thy hand
Continues to despoil our band?
May God forbid that of my race
A single child shall e'er disgrace
His native land, the resting place
Of martyred kin, by fear to face
Injustice by whomever thrown.
The ancient Plebeians of Rome
For treatment such renounced their home
And sought the Sacred Mountain's dome.
The colonies of George the Third
To less injustice war preferred
And fired,—the while the world concurred,—
The shot which round the earth was heard.
Republic cannot long endure
When autocrat can feel secure
To heap injustice on the poor
Or helpless; ruin follows sure.
Three centuries have near rolled by
Since first our fathers' mournful cry
And clank of chains rose to thy sky,
Nor yet have found just cause to die.
Our voice of protest shall not cease
Until thy unjust bonds release
Our rights, that our lives may increase
In riches, happiness and peace.
But I, alas! have given all
In answer to thy urgent call,
Exposed my life to sword and ball,
And now, as o'er me creeps the fall
Of life, I find no recompense
But base discharge, with no defense
Through which to prove my innocence,
Though I've committed no offense.
For this I've given up my home
O'er hapless battle-fields to roam,
I've crossed the ocean's hungry foam,
I've fought disease in hostile loam.
O God of justice and of right!
If thou art deaf and hast no sight,
Lend me Thy weapons and Thy might,
That this last battle I may fight.

 April Is National Poetry Month! 

THE NEGRO'S "AMERICA" appeared in "The Colored Advocate” 

in 1897.

FRANK BARBOUR COFFIN

POET X PHARMCIST

My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Would I could sing;
Its land of Pilgrim’s pride
Also where lynched men died
With such upon her tide,
Freedom can’t reign.
My native country, thee
The world pronounce you free
Thy name I love;
But when the lynchers rise
To slaughter human lives
Thou closest up thine eyes,
Thy God’s above.
Let Negroes smell the breeze
So they can sing with ease
Sweet freedom’s song;
Let justice reign supreme,
Let men be what they seem
Break up that lyncher’s screen,
Lay down all wrong.
Our fathers’ God, to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing;
How can our land be bright?
Can lynching be a light?
Protect us by thy might,
Great God our king!