Black Voices Matter

By Frances E W Harper, James Weldon Johnson and Claude McKay

This anthology focuses on African-American poets. We start in the 18th century and end with the Harlem Renaissance. Many poets featured are, and were, rarely heard and have been painfully neglected. To be of colour was deemed at best to be second class so few of our poets had the privileges most of us take for granted or a means to market. Down the ages they illuminate the stain on our humanity and its ever-repeating cycle.

Over ages, eons and countless generations humanity has sought to better itself. Ideas and cultures have sprung forth creating fertile conditions for change and advancement. We have gathered together as families, clans, tribes and nations in the clear knowledge that together more can be achieved for the individual. New systems have evolved, waxed and waned, been replaced or discarded by bright shiny new ones.

From afar the chances of humanity bettering itself must seem promising. But today's generations find themselves searching not only for answers from others but also from themselves, for solutions to turn a world where privilege, wealth and power reside with the few to be the right of the many. These unequal times will not give way easily. Entrenched interests will promise change and deliver little. This is the real history of the human race. We will claim that education, health care and jobs are for everyone and yet continue to mis-educate, to ignore primary care and offer jobs that even a robot would think twice about.

Those oppressed by race, creed, gender or colour will find the invisible walls of the status quo difficult to overcome. But there is hope - if we collectively want action. When we don’t merely call for that change but when we demand that change from ourselves, and from society. When we charge our political leaders to serve our interests rather than their own.

We may be created equal but society, and ourselves, sort, layer and assemble us all into groups, those it can keep underfoot and those who will have an unequal share. Real change requires all of us to change, to recognise that equal opportunity starts from equal access to resources. We need to praise ourselves less and provoke ourselves to do more, together. If the pain is shared the rewards can be shared.

This volume does not dwell only on equality but covers a very wide range of subjects from recognised masters of the craft such as Paul Laurence Dunbar and Phyllis Wheatley to lesser-known poets like Mary E Tucker and Charles Lewis Reason.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Portable Poetry
• Release date: Nov 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781835470763

Book preview

Black Voices Matter

An Introduction

This anthology focuses on African-American poets.  We start in the 18th century and end with the Harlem Renaissance.  Many poets featured are, and were, rarely heard and have been painfully neglected.  To be of colour was deemed at best to be second class so few of our poets had the privileges most of us take for granted or a means to market. Down the ages they illuminate the stain on our humanity and its ever-repeating cycle.

Over ages, eons and countless generations humanity has sought to better itself.  Ideas and cultures have sprung forth creating fertile conditions for change and advancement.  We have gathered together as families, clans, tribes and nations in the clear knowledge that together more can be achieved for the individual.  New systems have evolved, waxed and waned, been replaced or discarded by bright shiny new ones. 

From afar the chances of humanity bettering itself must seem promising.  But today's generations find themselves searching not only for answers from others but also from themselves, for solutions to turn a world where privilege, wealth and power reside with the few to be the right of the many.  These unequal times will not give way easily. Entrenched interests will promise change and deliver little.  This is the real history of the human race.  We will claim that education, health care and jobs are for everyone and yet continue to mis-educate, to ignore primary care and offer jobs that even a robot would think twice about.

Those oppressed by race, creed, gender or colour will find the invisible walls of the status quo difficult to overcome. But there is hope - if we collectively want action.  When we don’t merely call for that change but when we demand that change from ourselves, and from society.  When we charge our political leaders to serve our interests rather than their own.

We may be created equal but society, and ourselves, sort, layer and assemble us all into groups, those it can keep underfoot and those who will have an unequal share. Real change requires all of us to change, to recognise that equal opportunity starts from equal access to resources. We need to praise ourselves less and provoke ourselves to do more, together.  If the pain is shared the rewards can be shared.

This volume does not dwell only on equality but covers a very wide range of subjects from recognised masters of the craft such as Paul Laurence Dunbar and Phyllis Wheatley to lesser-known poets like Mary E Tucker and Charles Lewis Reason.

Index of Contents

A Poem for Children with Thoughts On Death by Jupiter Hammon

An Evening Thought by Jupiter Hammon

Bars Fight by Lucy Terry

On Virtue by Phyllis Wheatley

On Imagination by Phyllis Wheatley

An Hymn to the Morning by Phyllis Wheatley

An Hymn to the Evening by Phyllis Wheatley

Praise of Creation by George Moses Horton

On the Poetic Muse by George Moses Horton

The Slave's Complaint by George Moses Horton

A Poem on the Fugitive Slave Law by Elymas Payson Rogers

The Spirit Voice or Liberty Call to The Disfranchised by Charles Lewis Reason

Silent Thoughts by Charles Lewis Reason

Away to Canada by James McCarter Simpson

To the White People of America by Joshua McCarter Simpson

To.... by James Monroe Whitfield

Stanzas For the First of August by James Monroe Whitfield

Bury Me in a Free Land by Frances E W Harper

The Slave Mother by Frances E W Harper

My Mother's Kiss by Frances E W Harper

I Would Be Free by Alfred Gibbs Campbell

July 4th 1857 by Alfred Gibbs Campbell

Creation Light by James Madison Bell

A Bridal Toast by James Madison Bell

The Angel's Visit by Charlotte L Forten Grimke

Good-bye. Off For Kansas by John Willis Menard

In Memorium. Alphonese Campbell Fordham by Mary Weston Fordham

The Coming Woman by Mary Weston Fordham

A Dream of Glory by Albery Allson Whitman

Aspiration by Henrietta Cordelia Ray

Life by Henrietta Cordelia Ray

The Mocking Bird by Timothy Thomas Fortune

De Linin' ub de Hymns by Daniel Webster Davis

Ol' Doc Hyar by James Edwin Campbell

A Night In June By James Edwin Campbell

Through October Fields by James Edwin Campbell

Lift Every Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson

The Creation by James Weldon Johnson

O Black and Unknown Bards by James Weldon Johnson

To America by James Weldon Johnson

For the Man Who Fails by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The Fount of Tears by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar

We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Life's Tragedy by Paul Laurence Dunbar

If I Had Known by Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson

Impressions by Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson

Sonnet by Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Poetry