APRIL IS NATIONAL POETRY MONTH!
A Black abolitionist, a Barber, a Political Activist, and a Poet.
James M. Whitfield was born in 1822 in New Hampshire. By 16 years of age, he was publishing papers for the Negro rights education. His poems have appeared in The North Star, Fredrick Douglass' Paper, and The Liberator.
Without further ado, published in 1853, I present...
AMERICA.
America, it is to thee,
Thou boasted land of liberty,-
It is to thee I raise my song,
Thou land of blood, and crime, and wrong.
It is to thee, my native land,
From whence has issued many a banned
To tear the black man from his soil,
And force him here to delve and toil,
Chained on your blood-bemoistened sod,
Cringing beneath a tyrant's rod,
Stripped of those rights which Nature's God
Bequeathed to all human race,
Bound to a petty tyrant's nod,
Because he wears a paler face.
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