We see nothing in our Dark
Men but a vast Engine of Labor²
First man to Die for the Flag we
Now hold High was a Black man³
History lets the Blamed go Blameless for
The Blood that Flows Black in the Streets⁴
When old junk man Death comes to gather
Up our Bodies and toss them into the Sack
Of Oblivion, will he find the Corpse of a White
Multi-Millionaire worth more Pennies of Eternity
Than the Black Torso of a Negro Cotton-Picker?⁵
Suppose each Skin had it’s National Crimes writ
On it, when I cast my eye upon that White Skin
I should enter my Protest upon it immediately⁶
Not a House in the Country ain’t packed to
Its Rafters with some Dead Negro’s Grief⁷
The Hurt Black of our skin is Forbidden⁸
In the murky waters of Fetid Tenements,
A City of Black people is convulsed in
Desperate Living, like the Voracious
Churnings of Hungry Cannibal Fish⁹
Black folk will always get Lynched
But they stopped using Ropes¹⁰
¹ Hussam Al Rassam, quoted by Haifa Zangana in Songs of Iraqi Resistance
² Olive Schreiner, The Native Question
³ Stevie Wonder, Black Man
⁴ Reginald Dwayne Betts, For the City that Nearly Broke Me
⁵ Langston Hughes, Question
⁶ William Apess, An Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man
⁷ Toni Morrison, Beloved
⁸ Gwendolyn Brooks, The Near-Johannesburg Boy
⁹ Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem
¹⁰ Nile Lansana & Onam Lansana, Lesson one