Famous Poems About Segregation in America
By Ralph Heibutzki
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African-Americans have used poetry as a form of expression and social protest since slavery times. This drive gained momentum after the Civil War's end in 1865, when newly freed African-Americans faced a society that still appeared unwilling to treat them as equals. Through the verses of writers such as Paul L. Dunbar and Claude McKay, it's possible to gain insights about how life in a segregated society shaped African-Americans, and how they hoped to overcome it.
Paul L. Dunbar: "We Wear The Mask"
Born in 1872 to formerly enslaved parents, Dunbar focused on African-Americans' battles to assert basic rights as citizens. His most famous poem in this vein is "We Wear The Mask," published in 1896 as part of his collection, "Lyrics of Lowly Life," according to the National Humanities Center. The theme is a comment on society's unwillingness to acknowledge African-Americans' situation, as indicated by the first line's reference to wearing "the mask that grins and lies."
Claude McKay: "If We Must Die"
Published in 1919, "If We Must Die" signals a shift from subtle commentary to overt militancy, says William Maxwell, in an analysis for the Modern American Poetry website. McKay became a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance by addressing social ills that affected African-Americans' lives -- such as a rise in lynchings, notes author Trudier Harris in an article for the National Humanities Center. Poems like "If We Must Die" -- whose narrator desperately tries to fend off an angry mob, "dying, but fighting back" -- reflected this new approach.
Countee Cullen: "Incident"
Countee Cullen joined other Harlem Renaissance writers in condemning African-American social conditions during the 1920s and 1930s. His most famous poem is "Incident," which tells the story of a young boy who hears a racial slur on a bus. According to the Baltimore Literary Heritage Project, the poem accurately captures life in a city that closed an amusement park rather than integrate it. The narrator is doubly traumatized because he recalls nothing else of his visit, and realizes that society will always consider him inferior.
Langston Hughes: "Bound No'th Blues"
With "Bound No'th Blues," Langston Hughes addresses the mass migrations of the 1920s -- when African-Americans fled the South's poverty and violence in hope of finding a more racially tolerant North, states Harris, in her analysis for the National Humanities Center. Hughes makes this sentiment clear in the closing lines, which state: "On the no'thern road/These Mississippi towns ain't/Fit for a hoppin' toad." To drive home the point, he also repeats key phrases, such as "goin' down the road."
Amiri Baraka: "Black Art"
The erosion of racial barriers during the 1960s failed to satisfy a new breed of African-American protest poets like Amiri Baraka, who gained attention for his poem, "Black Art." Critics of the time denounced the poem as an endorsement of violence -- as stated in its calling for "Assassin poems, Poems that shoot/guns, Poems that wrestle cops into alleys/and take their weapons leaving them dead." According to Harris, the resulting controversy initially kept "Black Arts" out of many anthologies, although that situation eventually changed.
National Humanities Center: Freedom's Story: African American Protest Poetry
National Humanities Center: Paul Laurence Dunbar: Four Poems From "Lyrics of Lowly Life"
National Humanities Center: Paul Laurence Dunbar: Reading Guide
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Department of English: Modern American Poetry: McKay on "If We Must Die"
New World Review: Amiri Baraka: The Last Beat Standing
Poets.org: An Introduction to Langston Hughes
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Department of English: Modern American Poetry: On "Black Art"
WTTW: From Riots to Renaissance (1919-1940)
Ralph Heibutzki's articles have appeared in the "All Music Guide," "Goldmine," "Guitar Player" and "Vintage Guitar." He is also the author of "Unfinished Business: The Life & Times Of Danny Gatton," and holds a journalism degree from Michigan State University.
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