His home is in hell; he loves here to dwell;
We meet him wherever we go;
In all public places, where live both the races,
You’ll always see Mr. Jim Crow.
Be we well educated, even to genius related,
We may have a big pile of dough,
That cuts not a figger, you still are a nigger,
And that is the law with Jim Crow.
The Nashville Eye.
But the Negro is seldom humorous these days on the subject of racial discriminations. Occasionally, in dialect verse, he still makes merry with the foibles or over-accentuated traits of certain types of the Negro. In general, however, the Negro verse-smith goes to his work with a grim aspect. He is there to smite. Sometimes the anvil clangs, more mightily than musically. But there is precedent.
A stanza each from two poems somewhat intense will serve to show the character of much verse in Negro newspapers. The first is from verses entitled “Sympathy,” by Tilford Jones:
Mourn for the thousands slain,
The youthful and the strong;
Mourn for the last; but pray,
For those hung by the mobbing throng.
Pray to our God above,
To break the fell destroyer’s sway,
And show His saving love.
The second is the last stanza of a poem entitled Shall Race Hatred Prevail? by Adeline Carter Watson.
By the tears of Negro mothers,
By the woes of Negro wives,
By the sighs of Negro children,
By your gallant snuffed-out lives,
By the throne of God eternal;
Standing hard by Heaven’s gate,
Ye shall crush this cursed, infernal,
Western stigma: groundless hate!
The following two poems have a world of pathos for every reflecting person, in the unanswered question of each. The first is by Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson:
TO MY SON
Shall I say, “My son, you are branded in this country’s pageantry,
Foully tethered, bound forever, and no forum makes you free?”
Shall I mark the young light fading through your soul-enchanneled eye,
As the dusky pall of shadows screen the highway of your sky?
Or shall I with love prophetic bid you dauntlessly arise,
Spurn the handicap that binds you, taking what the world denies?
Bid you storm the sullen fortress built by prejudice and wrong,
With a faith that shall not falter in your heart and on your tongue!