James Weldon Johnson (1871 – 1938)
Leading American author, critic, journalist, poet, anthropologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, early civil rights activist, and prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance.
And Satan smiled, stretched out his hand, and said,—
"O War, of all the scourges of humanity, I crown you chief."
Find Sister Caroline...
And she's tired—
She's weary—
Go down, Death, and bring her to me.
The glory of the day was in her face,
The beauty of the night was in her eyes.
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around his shoulder.
Some men enjoy the constant strife
Of days with work and worry rife,
But that is not my dream of life:
I think such men are crazy.
For me, a life with worries few,
A job of nothing much to do,
Just pelf enough to see me through:
I fear that I am lazy.
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And He spat out the seven seas;
He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed;
He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled;
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.
It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive characteristic.
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.
Young man—Young man—Your arm’s too short to box with God.
The glory of the day was in her face,
The beauty of the night was in her eyes.
And over all her loveliness, the grace
Of Morning blushing in the early skies.
O black and unknown bards of long ago,
How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
How, in your darkness, did you come to know
The power and beauty of the minstrels' lyre?
How would you have us, as we are?
Or sinking 'neath the load we bear?
Our eyes fixed forward on a star?
Or gazing empty at despair?
Father, Father Abraham,
To-day look on us from above;
On us, the offspring of thy faith,
The children of thy Christ-like love.
And God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
"I'm lonely—
I'll make me a world."
You sang far better than you knew; the songs
That for your listeners’ hungry hearts sufficed
Still live,—but more than this to you belongs:
You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ.
I am a thing not new, I am as old
As human nature. I am that which lurks,
Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed;
The ancient trait which fights incessantly
Against restraint, balks at the upward climb;
The weight forever seeking to obey
The law of downward pull;—and I am more:
The bitter fruit am I of planted seed;
The resultant, the inevitable end
Of evil forces and the powers of wrong.
The colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them.
With his head in his hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I'll make me a man!
Every race and every nation should be judged by the best it has been able to produce, not by the worst.
Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies;
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.