The Blue Veins did not allow that any such requirement existed for admission to their circle, but, on the contrary, declared that character and culture were the only things considered; and that if most of their members were light-colored, it was because such persons, as a rule, had had better opportunities to qualify themselves for membership
This bring to mind the black panther party
Then into it he blew the breath of life, And man became a living soul. Amen. Amen.
Dose this mean that Amen came from the creation of man?
Then God walked around, And God looked around On all that he had made. He looked at his sun, And he looked at his moon, And he looked at his little stars; He looked on his world With all its living things, And God said: I'm lonely still.
You can make the best of life but when you do not have anyone to be with it mean nothing.
Enough, the brute must die! Quick! Chain him to that oak! It will resist The fire much longer than this slender pine. Now bring the fuel! Pile it round him! Wait! Pile not so fast or high! or we shall lose The agony and terror in his face. And now the torch! Good fuel that! the flames Already leap head-high. Ha! hear that shriek! And there’s another! wilder than the first. Fetch water! Water! Pour a little on The fire, lest it should burn too fast. Hold so! Now let it slowly blaze again. See there! He squirms! He groans! His eyes bulge wildly out, Searching around in vain appeal for help! Another shriek, the last! Watch how the flesh Grows crisp and hangs till, turned to ash, it sifts Down through the coils of chain that hold erect The ghastly frame against the bark-scorched tree.
This makes me think of the justices system and the way the black people are treated.
I claim no race, no race claims me; I am No more than human dregs; degenerate; The monstrous offspring of the monster, Sin; I am—just what I am. . . . The race that fed Your wives and nursed your babes would do the same Today. But I—
Look at black people as if they are just human like white people. You treat one different because of their skin color and not on how they helped you
Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed;
Are they talking about jail?
Which we have known three centuries? Not from That more than faithful race which through three wars Fed our dear wives and nursed our helpless babes Without a single breach of trust? Speak out!
how could they tslk about black people in this way when black people have always been there for them
Mark him well! Is he Not more like brute than man? Look in his eye! No light is there; none, save the glint that shines In the now glaring, and now shifting orbs Of some wild animal caught in the hunter’s trap.
The view of black peole from white people, they see them as monster
I had forgot wide fields; and clear brown streams;The perfect loveliness that God has made,—
One can see the world better when they are in go place, They see the best in things.
I had not thought of violets late,
This tell me what mindset she was in when she write this..
Wisht you could allus know ease an' cleah skies; Wisht you could stay jes' a chile on my breas'— Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes!
The wish that one child will be treated like other even when one know they will not. I wish that the world did not see color and that only seen people.
Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes, Come to yo' pappy an' set on his knee. What you been doin', suh — makin' san' pies? Look at dat bib — you's es du'ty ez me. Look at dat mouf — dat's merlasses, I bet; Come hyeah, Maria, an' wipe off his han's. Bees gwine to ketch you an' eat you up yit, Bein' so sticky an sweet — goodness lan's!
This feel like a conversing poem. Like a father telling his son about this harsh cruel world as a kid. The conversation that families have with their young black son about the cops.
They tread the fields where honour calls; Their voices sound through senate halls In majesty and power.
Black people stayed true to Africa. They were proud Africans working in America.
I know the pangs which thou didst feel, When Slavery crushed thee with its heel, With thy dear blood all gory.
The pain that slavery put on the country and the people.
Mother Race
This poem it addressed to Africa the land where all people are from
I know why the caged bird sings!
The author know how to make the best out of a bad thing.
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
I have heard the story about the caged bird before but I have never experience that feeling however the author has and that is explain very well in the poem. To know how it must feel to be stuck in the same place must be something.
Sympathy
I think that is a great title for this poem because the bird never wanted sympathy, it wanted freedom.
And now they beat at the prison door, "Ho, keeper, do not stay! We are friends of him whom you hold within, And we fain would take him away "From those who ride fast on our heels With mind to do him wrong; They have no care for his innocence, And the rope they bear is long."
People are trying to help the man get his freedom from this death. They state that the man is innocent and hope for his freedom
I bent me down to hear his sigh; I shook with his gurgling moan, And I trembled sore when they rode away, And left him here alone.
Now I think he is talking about watching a black man be kill. I think the tree was a part and watch a lynching.
My leaves were green as the best, I trow, And sap ran free in my veins, But I saw in the moonlight dim and weird A guiltless victim's pains.
I think he is talking about the realization of being a slave as a child. at birth one think one is born with freedom and then when one grow up one find out that freedom is not what one has.
This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
People work themselves to death with a smile on their face. Fake it to you make it.
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
This line states how people feel when they have to act like they like or enjoy something. the mask is a façade or act.
I will be black as blackness can— The blacker the mantle, the mightier the man! For blackness was ancient ere whiteness began.
Black man are so strong with in the lines and its what make white man scared
I am the Smoke King, I am black! I am wreathing broken hearts, I am sheathing love’s light darts; Inspiration of iron times Wedding the toil of toiling climes, Shedding the blood of bloodless crimes— Lurid lowering ’mid the blue, Torrid towering toward the true, I am the Smoke King, I am black.
This line give me a feeling of what slavery was like from a black man. The line the says "shedding the blood of bloodless crimes" really touch me. In today time we see this line right in front of us.
They are the music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment; they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways.
This is soul music from slavers
for the first time the North met the Southern slave face to face and heart to heart with no third witness.
I think this is a powerful line because North people got to see what slavery was like in the South and how black people were treated.
I walk through the churchyard To lay this body down; I know moon–rise, I know star–rise; I walk in the moonlight, I walk in the starlight; I'll lie in the grave and stretch out my arms, I'll go to judgment in the evening of the day, And my soul and thy soul shall meet that day, When I lay this body down.
He is tallking about his death.
Frankie and Johnny were lovers Oh lordy, how they could love Swore to be true to each other Just as true as the stars above
The love dynamic of this song is shared three people, however only two of them wants to be together.
He was her man, but he done her wrong
The repetition in this song bring to light the important of her message in the sond
Many thousands gone
thousands of black people have be sold and lost to slavery
No more auction block for meNo more, no more
This song is about freedom from slavery. No more will she be put on an auction block and be belittled in front of white people. She will never be sold again.
I had no schooling whatever while I was a slave, though I remember on several occasions I went as Page 7 far as the schoolhouse door with one of my young mistresses to carry her books. The picture of several dozen boys and girls in a schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression upon me, and I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.
Coming from not having schooling to writing a book just show how powerful black people are
I WAS born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia. I am not quite sure of the exact place or exact date of my birth, but at any rate I suspect I must have been born somewhere and at some time. As nearly as I have been able to learn, I was born near a cross-roads post-office called Hale's Ford, and the year was 1858 or 1859. I do not know the month or the day. The earliest impressions I can now recall are of the plantation and the slave quarters -- the latter being the part of the plantation where the slaves had their cabins.
Not knowing where and when you were born is crazy to me.Birthday are one of the most if not the most in a person year Do you really know who you as when you do not no basic facts about yourself.
Mrs. B. made no reply, but changed the subject adroitly. Next morning she told Frado she "should not go out of the house for one while, except on errands; and if she did not stop trying to be religious, she would whip her to death."
Religion is bad in this lady mind for a slave, she dose not want her to learn about god. I think that she think that her slave will learn of god and run away
James began to speak of life as closing; of heaven, as of a place in immediate prospect; of aspirations, which waited for fruition in glory. His brother, Lewis by name, was an especial favorite of sister Mary; more like her, in disposition and preferences than James or Jack.
The feelings they must been feeling know that he is about to die and they can not stop it from happen. This is the feeling of seeing someone in hospice.
Jane, an invalid daughter, the eldest of those at home, was reclining on a sofa apparently uninterested. "Keep her," said Jack. "She's real handsome and bright, and not very black, either." "Yes," rejoined Mary; "that's just like you, Jack. She'll be of no use at all these three years, right under foot all the time." "Poh! Miss Mary; if she should stay, it wouldn't be two days before you would be telling the girls about OUR nig, OUR nig!" retorted Jack. "I don't want a nigger 'round ME, do you, mother?" asked Mary. "I don't mind the nigger in the child. I should like a dozen better than one," replied her mother. "If I could make her do my work in a few years, I would keep her. I have so much trouble with girls I hire, I am almost persuaded if I have one to train up in my way from a child, I shall be able to keep them awhile. I am tired of changing every few months." "Where could she sleep?" asked Mary. "I don't want her near me."
The way they talk about black people is dishearten. They treat black people like they are animals
"Nobody will want any thing of mine, or yours either," she replied.
She has no self-respect and that why she thinks this way about her child.
Who'll take the black devils?" snarled Mag.
The way she talks about her children as if they are not hers. Mother break down their children self-esteem when they speak badly about them.
Such was Mag's experience; and disdaining to ask favor or friendship from a sneering world, she resolved to shut herself up in a hovel she had often passed in better days, and which she knew to be untenanted. She vowed to ask no favors of familiar faces; to die neglected and forgotten before she would be dependent on any.
People who do not grow up with love and trust have a hard time trusting and depending on people, hurt people do not want help from other people who know they are hurt
LONELY MAG SMITH! See her as she walks with downcast eyes and heavy heart. It was not always thus. She HAD a loving, trusting heart. Early deprived of parental guardianship, far removed from relatives, she was left to guide her tiny boat over life's surges alone and inexperienced. As she merged into womanhood, unprotected, uncherished, uncared for, there fell on her ear the music of love, awakening an intensity of emotion long dormant.
Life is hard for a woman when she grows up with a mother. You learn things the hard way from other people. It is nothing like a mothers love when you are a teenage to help you out with things
Oh, Father! must they part?
Poeple must have been watching this moment, and a child said why must they part. Watching the separation of mothing and child is hard to understand and it make one feel sad.
His lightest word has been a tone Of music round her heart,
All mother feel a joy when they hear their baby talks. Her child was about to be taking from her and his voice it something she can remember him by.
He is not hers, although she bore For him a mother’s pains; He is not hers, although her blood Is coursing through his veins!
A child that was brith by a slave was never the save child. the child belonged to the masters and they did what they wanted with the child.
And left the palace of the King, Proud of her spotless name -- A woman who could bend to grief, But would not bow to shame.
She will not let herself be shame by her husband name and or action.
Go, tell the King," she sadly said, "That I would rather die."
She is saying that she would die before staying with this man.
Can you blame me if I’ve learned to think Your hate of vice a sham, When you so coldly crushed me down And then excused the man?
The word blames females for learning and growing to be better people but do not do the same for males
Do you blame me that I loved him?
When she asks :"do you blame me..." the you In this context is the people in the time. Who gives us the right to judge.
Crime has no sex and yet to-day I wear the brand of shame; Whilst he amid the gay and proud Still bears an honored name.
She is saying that the world judges male and female
His steadfast soul fearing no harm, But trusting in the aid of Heaven, And wielding, with unfaltering arm, The utmost power which God has given --- Conscious that the Almighty power Will nerve the faithful soul with might, Whatever storms may round him lower, Strikes boldly for the true and right.
This is statement that touched me because it talks about your inner self. How one know their true self and inner values.
I LOVE the man whose lofty mind On God and its own strength relies; Who seeks the welfare of his kind, And dare be honest though he dies; Who cares not for the world’s applause,
The opening line of the poem sets the tone of the poem by creating the feel of proudness.
America, it is to thee, Thou boasted land of liberty,— It is to thee I raise my song, Thou land of blood, and crime, and wrong. It is to thee, my native land, From whence has issued many a band To tear the black man from his soil, And force him here to delve and toil; Chained on your blood-bemoistened sod, Cringing beneath a tyrant's rod, Stripped of those rights which Nature's God Bequeathed to all the human race, Bound to a petty tyrant's nod, Because he wears a paler face.
This is a great way to start the poem because it the truth about the subject of the poem is. It the truth about America. This sets the tone of the poem as hurt and angry.
Almighty God! Ât is this they call The land of liberty and law; Part of its sons in baser thrall Than Babylon or Egypt saw— Worse scenes of rapine, lust and shame, Than Babylonian ever knew, Are perpetrated in the name Of God, the holy, just, and true; And darker doom than Egypt felt, May yet repay this nation's guilt
I think how he talks about the first enslaved people. How he compares both slavery and how the first people to enslaved slavery was less painful and black people being enslaved. The nation guilt is far worse than Egypt guilt.
In freedom's cause their voices raise, And burst the bonds of every slave; Till, north and south, and east and west, The wrongs we bear shall be redressed.
He want god to show no mercy to slave masters or any people who treated black people bad or different from others. He wants go to address all problems between both races before going into heaven. This is also a great way to end the poem because god will answer all problems
"You take no notice of the other girl," said my friend. I turned, and there stood my Ellen! I pressed her to my heart, then held her away from me to take a look at her. She had changed a good deal in the two years since I parted from her. Signs of neglect could be discerned by eyes less observing than a mother's. My friend invited us all to go into the house; but Ellen said she had been sent of an errand, which she would do as quickly as possible, and go Page 251 home and ask Mrs. Hobbs to let her come and see me
Seeing and going so long without a mother must have been hard. Real joy came when see her mother.
a slave, being property, can hold no property. When my grandmother lent her hard earnings to her mistress, she trusted solely to her honor. The honor of a slaveholder to a slave!
slaves were property and a slave master words mean nothing to a piece of property.
I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of women at the South, still in bondage, suffering what I suffered, and most of them far worse. I want to add my testimony to that of abler pens to convince the people of the Free States what Slavery really is.
She wants the woman of the North to see and have a better understanding of what life in the South is like for slaves. She want the North help with the ending of slavery.
Oh, Liberty! thou golden prize, So often sought by blood— We crave thy sacred sun to rise, The gift of nature’s God!
Liberty for slave would be the greats gift from God. One day they would be slaves. Next day when the sun comes up they will be free.
Come Liberty, thou cheerful sound, Roll through my ravished ears! Come, let my grief in joys be drowned, And drive away my fears.
The feeling of freedom for slave.
How long have I in bondage lain, And languished to be free! Alas! and must I still complain— Deprived of liberty.
Slaves have been enslaved for to long and now they are waiting for freedom to come
Weep for the seas of blood the battle cost,And souls that ever hope forever lost!The ravage of the field with no recruit,Trees by the vengeance blasted to the root!
Here he is talking about the black people who fought in the war.He speaks to both races, black and white in this poem.
Weep for the downfall of your president,Who far too late his folly must repent;Who like the dragon did all heaven assail,And dragged his friends to limbo with his tail!
"Weep for" is repeat it throughout this poem. He was us to feel bad for people.
Weep for the country in its present state,And of the gloom which still the future waits;
I love the opening line because it relates back to todays time. Future repeats itself.