Celebrating African-American Literature 365 days a Year!

Please share with us your favorite poems. If you are a poet, share with us a little of your work.

Here is one of our elders we should know and remember:

Harper, Fances Ellen Watkins (1825-1911)

Harper, Fances Ellen Watkins (1825-1911), African American writer and antislavery, women's rights, and temperance activist. As a lecturer, activist, poet, and novelist, Harper dedicated her life to promoting social uplift—of women, of African Americans, and of African American women in particular—in as many forums as she could find. In the process, she became one of the best-known and most respected black women of the 19th century.

Harper was born into a free black family in Baltimore, Maryland. She was orphaned at the age of two, and then raised by her uncle, the Rev. William Watkins, director of Baltimore's prestigious Academy for Negro Youth. Harper attended the school, where she studied Greek, Latin, and the Bible. As a result, she was better educated than most other American women of her day, black or white. Harper began writing poetry as a teenager, publishing the poetry collection Forest Leaves before she was 20. Her second career, as an activist, began almost a decade later.

During her lifetime, Harper was commemorated through F.E.W. Harper Leagues, Frances E. Harper Woman's Christian Temperance Unions, and chapters of other organizations that bore her name. Harper was also recognized by the Daughters of America and Patriots of the American Revolution.

Here is a poem I wrote which I would like to share entitled, "Lost and Found Identity"

LOST & FOUND IDENTITY

Since coming to America
After traveling so far
We've lost our true identity
And now don't know who we are;

We've been thoroughly mis-educated
Taught a false reality
In an attempt to change our thought process
To a slave mentality;

This is part of our punishment
For not listening to God
Because of our disobedience
Our lives are extremely hard;

We're the only group in America
Stripped from whence we came
They deprived us of our history
They even took away our name;

Those from China are still called Chinese
Those from Mexico, still Mexican
While we've been called Negro, Colored, Black
And Afro-American;

Well, regardless of what they call us
I'm here to spread the news
Black people wrote the first Bible
We're the original Hebrews;

Our punishment won't last forever
Someday God will take us back
Imagine the joy of reaching Heaven
And discovering God is black.

Here's a poem I wrote about a little piece of New York Black History.

AFRICAN BURIAL GROUND

In New York City, May of 1991,
construction of a federal building had begun.
As excavators started removing stones,
they dug up a graveyard full of human bones.
Archaeologists were brought in to exhume the graves,
and discovered these were the remains of African slaves.
Slaves that cleared shorelines,
and built New York's first roads,
incurring premature deaths
from carrying crushing workloads.
The information gathered from this discovery,
will help us to secure our place in New York's history.

Listen to the ringing of the old church bell,
as we bid our forefathers, a proper farewell.
African Americans dance in the streets,
to the thunderous sound of pounding drumbeats.
Lifting our voices in a mighty chorus,
we pay tribute to our ancestors before us.
Individual coffins carved by hand,
were fittingly commissioned from the homeland.
Their bones were reburied, their souls finally free,
on the fourth of October 2003.

Here's another bit of Black History some may not be aware of:

OKLAHOMA BOMBING

Oklahoma is the place of the worst bombing on US soil
But make no mistake,
I'm not referring to the federal building bombing at all

I'm talking about a bombing that took place many years ago
And of this bombing,
people in high places really don't want you or I to know

A white woman falsely accused an innocent black man of rape
This lead to a holocaust
which few affluent black Americans would escape

It happened in Oklahoma on June 1, 1921
And from this one simple little incident
all hell and chaos had begun

That's when the largest massacre of black businessmen took place
Lead by envious Ku Klux Klansmen
wearing white sheets to cover up their face

Like savages they roamed the streets killing black folks with no regard
Then bombed and burned every building to the ground
and even called in the National Guard

3,000 blacks were killed and buried in mass graves around the city
This blatant disregard for human life
is deplorable and such a pity

In Black Wall Street, Little Africa, successful businesses once thrived
But after twelve hours of carnage,
not one black business had survived

Churches, restaurants, law offices, a bank, the list goes on and on
Not a single building was left standing
when the sun rose in the morn

Though damages were total, and the casualties were many
Black victims received no restitution to rebuild,
not one insurance penny