THE NEGRO CHURCH
That the Negro church possesses
Extraordinary power,
That it is the greatest medium
For influencing our people,
That it long has slept and faltered,
Failed to meet its obligations,
Are, to honest and true thinkers,
Facts which have to be admitted.
For these reasons there are many
Who would have the church awaken
And adopt the modern methods
Of all other institutions.
Make us more enlightened Christians,
Teach us courtesy and English,
Racial pride and sanitation,
Science, thrift and Negro history.
Yea, the preacher, like the shepherd,
Should be leader and protector,
And prepare us for the present
Just as well as for the future;
He should know more than Scriptures,
And should ever be acquainted
With all vital, daily subjects
Helpful to his congregation.
Give us manly, thinking preachers
And not shouting money-makers,
Men of intellect and vision,
Who will really help our people:
Men who make the church a guide-post
To the road of racial progress,
Who will strive to fit the Negro
For this world as well as heaven.
In another chapter I give one of Mr. Razafkeriefo’s poems in regular stanzas of the traditional type. It is but just to state that his productions exhibit a great variety of forms. His moods and traits, too, are various. There is the evidence of ardent feeling and strong conviction in most he writes.
Langston Hughes
This poet gets his strange name (pronounced rä-zäf-ker-rāf) from the island of Madagascar. His father, now dead, “falling in battle for Malagasy freedom,” before the poet’s birth, was a nephew of the late queen of Madagascar, Ranavalona III. His mother, a colored American, was a daughter of a United States consul to Madagascar. The poet was born in the city of Washington in 1895 and now resides in Cleveland, Ohio.