GoSetaPhire

 April Is National Poetry Month

This Poem was first published as “The Negro” in The Crisis Magazine in June 1921.

Negro

I am a Negro:

Black as the night is black,

Black like the depths of my Africa.

I've been a slave:

Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean.

I brushed the boots of Washington.

I've been a worker:

Under my hand the pyramids arose.

I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.

I've been a singer:

All the way from Africa to Georgia

I carried my sorrow songs.

I made ragtime.

I've been a victim:

The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo.

They lynch me still in Mississippi

I am a Negro:

Black as the night is black,

Black like the depths of my Africa.