She is not so Afraid at Night
Because she is the Color of it²
The Bourgeoisie is Fearful of the
Negro Woman, and for Good Reason³
Simple Justice is the Right of Every Race⁴
The American Negro has the great Advantage of
Having never believed the collection of Myths to
Which White Americans Cling: that their Ancestors
Were Freedom-loving Heroes – that they were born
In the Greatest Country the World has ever seen –
Or that they’re Invincible in Battle, Wise in Peace⁵
Africans Bruise & Break themselves Against their
Bars in pursuit of Freedoms Wider than their own⁶
Society has no right to Bargain with the Negro for
The Freedom which Inherently Belongs to him⁷
I am the Dark Girl who Crosses the Wide Sea,
Carrying my Body in the Sea of the Free⁸
BLACK is an Open Umbrella – I’m
Black and A Black Forever, I am A
Black – and I Capitalize my Name⁹
My Favorite subject is a Brown
Hand Clasping a Black one¹⁰
¹ Countee Cullen, Yet Do I Marvel
² Toni Morrison, Beloved
³ Claudia Jones, An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Women!
⁴ Francis Ellen Watkins Harper, To the Union Savers of Cleveland
⁵ James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
⁶ C.L.R. James, A History of Negro Revolt
⁷ Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can’t Wait
⁸ Langston Hughes, The Negro Mother
⁹ Gwendolyn Brooks, I Am A Black
¹⁰ V.S. Naipaul, Miguel Street