You've got to appreciate the things that come from the art of the Negro and from the heart of the man farthest down.
quote by William Christopher Handy
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Negro Woman
The sky hangs heavy tonight
Like the hair of a Negro woman.
The scars of the moon are curved
Like the wrinkles on the brow of A Negro woman.
The stars twinkle tonight
Like the glaze in a Negro woman’s eyes,
Drinking the tears set flowing by an aging hurt
Gnawing at her heart.
The earth trembles tonight
Like the quiver of a Negro woman’s eye-lids cupping
tears.
poem by Lewis Grandison Alexander
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Hey! I am so restless - Original by Rabindranath Tagore
Hey! I am so restless
I long for the Farthest!
Days go by one by one
I look through the window
To see if He has come –
I want His touch so very much!
O the Farthest, the huge Farthest
Your flute’s music makes me impressed
So I forget I have no wing
And this small earth is my address!
I am absent-minded!
O the huge Farthest
I am indifferent as if I am dead!
In the sunny idle day
Trees make sound and shadows play!
The sky seems like your blue eyes!
If you could come here to stay!
O the Farthest, the huge Farthest
Your flute’s music makes me impressed
So I forget my room is locked
It’s of no use to try my best!
poem by Asif Andalib
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If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.
quote by Sam Phillips
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If any man claims the Negro should be content... let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin and go to live in the Negro section of a large city. Then and only then has he a right to such a claim.
quote by Robert Kennedy
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If any man claims the Negro should be content ... let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin and go to live in the Negro section of a large city. Then and only then has he a right to such a claim.
quote by Robert Francis Kennedy
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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So the Negro race has continued, and today is the day of the Negro as far as the world is concerned. They have influenced the generations of time; they have mixed their blood with many peoples, until there are many peoples not able to hold the priesthood.
quote by Warren Jeffs
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The very first time I was on a car in Atlanta, I saw the conductor - all conductors are white - ask a Negro woman to get up and take a seat farther back in order to make a place for a white man. I have also seen white men requested to leave the Negro section of the car.
quote by Ray Stannard Baker
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I am not prejudiced against the Negro. When I was governor, I did more to help the Negroes in our State than any previous Governor, and I think you can find Negro leaders in the State who will attest to this fact.
quote by Strom Thurmond
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Negro Schools
Please be silent now, my country, while I fill the speaker's place;
While I point out some abuses that we constantly embrace,
Listen with your best attention to the words that I shall say,
How the Negro schools are managed, in this Commonwealth today.
All the officers are white men and together they conspire,
To undo the schools for Negroes, of such deeds they never tire;
Oft we find among the trustees men who cannot read a word,
But when speaking of the Negro, they are certain to be heard.
Education for the Negro they discourage, and they say,
'It will bring dissatisfaction to such people ev'ry day,
Make them crave for something higher, such as white men should enjoy,
Which will spoil the other Negroes that we have in our employ.'
Shorter terms are recommended many times as low as two
Are the months to Negroes given, in a year—now this is true,
Longer terms the whites are given in the same communities—
They conform to such a standard of the right with perfect ease.
Poorer pay to Negro teachers, driving good ones from the field,
Schools are let to lowest bidders to the same they're forced to yield,
Higher pay and better teachers for the white schools is the cry.
While encouragement is given Negro schools to starve and die.
Rural libraries established for the whites on ev'ry side,
But when application's made for Negro schools it is denied,
Thus they deal with education for the mass of Negro youth,
Posing still as great exponents and conservers of the truth.
From the sword of fierce Goliath we may all a lesson learn,
How while planning death to others on your head it may return,
In regard to schools for Negroes, cease their welfare to neglect,
For the same will come upon you in a way you least expect.
poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Jim Crow Cars
If within the cruel Southland you have chanced to take a ride,
You the Jim Crow cars have noticed, how they crush a Negro's pride,
How he pays a first class passage and a second class receives,
Gets the worst accommodations ev'ry friend of truth believes.
'Tis the rule that all conductors, in the service of the train,
Practice gross discriminations on the Negro—such is plain—
If a drunkard is a white man, at his mercy Negroes are,
Legalized humiliation is the Negro Jim Crow car.
'Tis a license given white men, they may go just where they please,
In the white man's car or Negro's will they move with perfect ease,
If complaint is made by Negroes the conductor will go out
Till the whites are through carousing, then he shows himself about.
They will often raise a riot, butcher up the Negroes there,
Unmolested will they quarrel, use their pistols,rant and swear,
They will smoke among the ladies though offensive the cigar;
'Tis the place to drink their whiskey, in the Negro Jim Crow car.
If a Negro shows resistance to his treatment by a tough,
At some station he's arrested for the same, though not enough,
He is thrashed or lynched or tortured as will please the demon's rage,
Mobbed, of course, by 'unknown parties,' thus is closed the darkened page.
If a lunatic is carried, white or black, it is the same,
Or a criminal is taken to the prison-house in shame,
In the Negro car he's ushered with the sheriff at his side,
Out of deference for white men in their car he scorns to ride.
We despise a Negro's manhood, says the Southland, and expect,
All supremacy for white men—black men's rights we'll not protect,
This the Negro bears with patience for the nation bows to might,
Wrong has borne aloft its colors disregarding what is right.
This is called a Christian nation, but we fail to understand,
How the teachings of the Bible can with such a system band;
Purest love that knows no evil can alone the story tell,
How to banish such abuses, how to treat a neighbor well.
poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Hand In Hand, Come Lets Love...
A dream it was, just a dream-
we were walking together with hand in hand
towards the Sun set where the sky and the earth
seemed to be holding together
you the emotional and impractical was arguing,
that they were destined to be together as we do-
me the practical with rationale was saying,
that for all eternity it can't be true;
we have walked a long way, the Sun has left the horizon
and the moon has taken his place with a gleam,
still we walked together with hand
in hand, into places unknown,
hoping to know, what's there at the end of the ends
and at the farthest of the farthest places-
each one trying to prove the other wrong, but wanna
see it for ourselves, with what's there after all-
blessed by thee, do they get to be together
or are they cursed to not to be
for all the distance we have walked together
and all the places left behind
the sky and the earth still seemed to be holding
together in the end of the ends and in the farthest
of the farthest places; so we were, holding ourselves
together with hand in hand, walking with stride to stride;
love is not there to be found or to be sought,
it is there to be lived, in every walk we walk
and every hold we hold, come what may, with hand
in hand together forever!
- to my love
poem by Senthil Kumar B
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A Negro woman has the same kind of problems as other women, but she can't take the same things for granted.
quote by Dorothy Height
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Negro Boy
Paupertas onus visa est grave.
Cold blows the wind, and while the tear
Bursts trembling from my swollen eyes,
The rain's big drop, quick meets it there,
And on my naked bosom flies!
O pity, all ye sons of Joy,
The little wand'ring Negro-boy.
These tatter'd clothes, this ice-cold breast
By Winter harden'd into steel,
These eyes, that know not soothing rest,
But speak the half of what I feel!
Long, long, I never new one joy,
The little wand'ring Negro-boy!
Cannot the sigh of early grief
Move but one charitable mind?
Cannot one hand afford relief?
One Christian pity, and be kind?
Weep, weep, for thine was never joy,
O little wand'ring Negro-boy!
Is there a good which men call Pleasure?
O Ozmyn, would that it were thine!
Give me this only precious treasure;
How it would soften grief like mine!
Then Ozmyn might be call'd, with joy,
The little wand'ring Negro-boy!
My limbs these twelve long years have borne
The rage of ev'ry angry wind:
Yet still does Ozmyn weep and mourn,
Yet still no ease, no rest can find!
Then death, alas, must soon destroy
The little wand'ring Negro-boy!
No sorrow e'er disturbs the rest,
That dwells within the lonely grave;
Thou best resource, the wo-wrung breast
E'er ask'd of Heav'n, or Heav'n e'er gave!
Ah then, farewell, vain world, with joy
I die the happy Negro-boy!
poem by James Henry Leigh Hunt
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Effects are made as causes
.The sun rises in the east; no,
It is the east where it rises.
The sun is the farthest in winter; no,
It is winter when it’s the farthest.
We mistake the cause for the effect.
06.07.2008
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Prejudice
How strangely blind is prejudice, the Negro's greatest foe!
It never fails to see the wrong but naught of good can know.
'Tis blind to all that's lofty, yea, to truth it is opposed,
Degrading things will ope his eyes, while good will keep them closed.
How cruel, too, is prejudice! how wicked is the tongue!
The evils reign supremely there, the bad is ever sung;
With some the Negro needs a soul, with others he's a brute,
In silence those remaining live and naught of this dispute.
The schools it legislates against, in keeping Negroes down,
Whatever tends to elevate it meets it with a frown.
It gives to them the Jim Crow car and vessels on the sea;
It makes the stockade to exist and take their liberty.
It makes the press to vacillate up the Negro's name,
The pulpit makes a compromise with evil, for the same,
It makes the Pharaohs of today and seals them with its ban,
It strives to close the door of hope upon the Negro man.
It causes mobs to formulate, to come and go at will,
At morning, evening, noon or night, a Negro man to kill,
It brings injustice to the courts when Negro men are tried,
It wrings the ballot from their hands—a thousand wrongs beside.
It is the country's greatest curse, the nation's open sore,
It slowly saps the precious life, is poison to the core,
Such ravages gave certain death to nations in the past,
The same will lay this country low, its fondest hopes will blast.
It minimizes all that's good and magnifies the ill,
The devil's mission upon earth, it clamors to fulfill;
'Twas prejudice that caused the death of Christ upon the tree,
He knows the pangs that Negroes feel and gives them sympathy.
When men refuse to see the light a darkness is assured,
Such blindness comes upon the scene as never can be cured!
Contagious is the dread disease, for Negroes learn to view
The white man with suspicious eyes, but here's a thing that's new.
The Negro Problem of the land, and all the same entails,
Will be no more whene'er we find a sentiment prevails,
To bury prejudice so deep it never can arise
Till all the races of the earth shall meet above the skies.
Twas God who made the Negro black, the reasons are His own
One blood the nations all the same, the facts are too well known,
He also made the Golden Rule, to use the neighbor well,
Shall prejudice among us dwell forever? who can tell?
poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Six Thirty Nine In The Morning
it is raining
but the way the things are going
this morning seems to be so soft and gentle
tiny needles of rain like some snowflakes
in my mind
i have not been to chicago or to new jersey
or to any place where there is snow
where the coldness perhaps
strikes at the core of the heart
where my loneliness
though how far taken to make it
disappear like a car running to the farthest road
and like a dot dissolving in the horizon
shall not perish
not even diminish like a number five
subtracted from four
it is cold even when the sun starts to shine
simply because
you are not here with me
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Little Negro
Ah! the poor little blackamoor, see there he goes,
And the blood gushes out from his half frozen toes,
And his legs are so thin you may see the very bones,
As he goes shiver, shiver, on the sharp cutting stones.
He was once a negro boy, and a merry boy was he,
Playing outlandish plays, by the tall palm tree;
Or bathing in the river, like a brisk water rat,
And at night sleeping sound, on a little bit of mat.
But there came some wicked people, and they stole him far away,
And then good bye to palm-tree tall, and merry merry play;
For they took him from his house and home, and ev'ry body dear,
And now, poor little negro boy, he's come a begging here.
And fie upon the wicked folks who did this cruel thing!
I wish some mighty nobleman would go and tell the king;
For to steal him from his house and home must be a crying sin,
Though he was a little negro boy, and had a sooty skin.
poem by Ann Taylor
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Of all the music that reached farthest into heaven, it is the beating of a loving heart.
quote by Henry Ward Beecher
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Emancipation Day
The sixties brought a clash of arms—
The mem'ry of it thrills and charms—
While Negro slaves for freedom prayed,
Till Heaven bowed to give them aid.
The God of nations—God of right—
Kept back success within the fight,
Till Lincoln vowed on bended knee,
To set the Negro bondsmen free.
The first of January, see!
In eighteen hundred sixty three,
The first Emancipation Day,
When mad oppressors lost their sway,
The sun of freedom rose that day,
The night of bondage drove away,
When sainted Lincoln did decree,
That slaves forever should be free.
As years of time have come and gone,
For each the Negro race has borne,
Abundant fruit in freedom's name,
That will not bring the nation shame.
Emancipation Day, so great!
With joy we meet to celebrate,
The Sun of Righteousness we hail,
Who died that freedom might prevail.
poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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