ON BEING A NEGRO

by

(For Muhammid Ali)

I am a Negro! -- therein lies my pride.

The worst atrocities I have defied

To break me! -- I shall never run and hide,

Though I am ostracized, and down at heel,

Derided on all sides, and forced to kneel

In dust of pain to fiends who cannot feel;

Who perpetrate the most inhumane deeds,

While clinging on to base inhuman creeds.

I am a Negro, so my black blood bleeds

From wounds that fester to my very soul!

Inflicted by those beings whose sweetest goal

Is to deny all that would make me whole....

When will they realize that I, like they,

Am but a petty mortal made from clay

Who must revert to dirt in vile decay

When my sojourn is ended on this earth?

A gram of dust is any body's worth,

No matter what its race or rank at birth!

But being a Negro, I have suffered long.

My suffering is the soul within my song.

Listen, my friends, you'll hear it, sad and strong,

Sweet as the moaning of a morning breeze

Through lonely stands of weeping willow trees.

Have you ever heard sadder songs than these?

No man, except a black, can ever know

The other agonies that do not show

Beneath the rawhide veneer of my woe!

I suffer just because my skin is black!

As did my fathers on the wheel and rack!

They did not break! Man, I won't even crack!

But I shall purge my being of shame imbued

By your repulsion and solicitude,

To saunter proud, proud of my Negritude.

NEXT?
Why don't you look at When Mangan Penned Dark Rosaleen
by: Francis Duggan
from: Wonthaggi, Victoria, Australia

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