This is an anthology of poems from the civil rights era, from 1955 until 1975. Editor Jeffrey Coleman has grouped them chronologically around major events of the time, including the Emmett Till lynching, the integration of Little Rock High School, the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, and the rise of the Black Panthers. The anthology includes poems by many of the most significant writers of the era including W.H. Auden, Langston Hughes, Allen Ginsberg, Gwendolyn Brooks, Aime Cesaire, Adrienne Rich, Nikki Giovanni, Alice Walker, Lucille Clifton, Derek Walcott, Leopold Sedar Senghor, and others. The topical structure allows the reader the chance to compare the different ways that each of the writers addressed the events in their own impassioned way.
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction. Journey toward Freedom 1
"Had she been worth the blood?"
The Lynching of Emmett Till, 1955 15
Remembrance / Rhoda Gaye Ascher 17
The Better Sort of People / John Beecher 17
A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a
Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon / Gwendolyn Brooks 19
The Last Quatrain on the Ballad of Emmett Till / Gwendolyn Brooks
23
On the State of the Union / Aimé Césaire 24
Temperate Belt: Reflections on the Mother of Emmett Till / Durwood
Collins Jr. 26
Emmett Till / James A. Emanuel 27
Elegy for Emmett Till / Nicolás Guillén 28
Mississippi—1955 (To the Memory of Emmett Till) / Langston Hughes
31
Money, Mississippi / Eve Merriam 32
Salute / Oliver Pitcher 33
"Godfearing citizens / with Bibles, taunts, and stones"
The Little Rock Crisis, 1957–1958 35
The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock / Gwendolyn Brooks
37
Little Rock / Nicolás Guillén 39
School Integration Riot / Robert Hayden 40
My Blackness Is the Beauty of This Land / Lance Jeffers 41
"The FBI knows who lynched you"
The Murder of Mack Charles Parker, 1959 43
Poplarville II / Keith E. Baird 45
Mack C. Parker / Phillip Abbott Luce 45
For Mack C. Parker / Pauli Murray 48
Collect for Poplarville / Pauli Murray 49
"Fearless before the waiting throng"
The Life and Death of Medgar Evers 51
Medgar Evers (for Charles Evers) / Gwendolyn Brooks 53
American (In Memory of Medgar Evers) / R. D. Coleman 53
For Medgar Evers / David Ignatow 54
Blues for Medgar Evers / Aaron Kramer 55
Micah (In Memory of Medgar Evers of Mississippi) / Margaret Walker
56
"Under the leaves of hymnals, the plaster and stone"
The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing, 15 September 1963
57
Escort for a President / John Beecher 60
American History / Michael S. Harper 61
Here Where Coltrane Is / Michael S. Harper 62
Birmingham Sunday / Langston Hughes 63
Suffer the Children / Audre Lorde 64
Birmingham 1963 / Raymond Patterson 64
Ballad of Birmingham / Dudley Randall 65
Ballad for Four Children and a President / Edith Segal 67
September 1963 / Jean Valentine 68
"What we have seen / Has become history, tragedy"
The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 22 November 1963
71
Belief / A. R. Ammons 75
Elegy for J. F. K. / W. H. Auden 76
The Assassination of John F. Kennedy / Gwendolyn Brooks 80
On Not Writing an Elegy / Robert Frost 81
At the Brooklyn Docks, November 23, 1963 / Dorothy Gilbert 81
Verba in Memoriam / Barbara Guest 82
Until Death Do Us Part / Anselm Hollo 85
A Night Picture of Pownal, for J. F. K. / Barbara Howes 86
Before the Sabbath / David Ignatow 88
Jacqueline / Will Inman 89
Down in Dallas / X. J. Kennedy 89
In Arlington Cemetery / Stanley Koehler 90
Four Days in November / Marjorie Mir 92
Sonnet for John-John / Marvin Solomon 92
Not That Hurried for Grief, for John F. Kennedy / Lorenzo Thomas
93
November 22, 1963 / Lewis Turco 94
The Gulf / Derek Walcott 95
"Deep in the Mississippi thicket / I hear the mourning dove"
The Search for James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner,
1964 99
A Commemorative Ode / John Beecher 102
Mississippi, 1964 / Marjorie Mir 105
The Book of Job and a Draft of a Poem to Praise the Paths of the
Living / George Oppen 106
The Demonstration / Gregory Orr 112
Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman / Raymond Patterson 113
Speech for LeRoi / Armand Schwerner 113
When Black People Are / A. B. Spellman 115
For Andy Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney / Margaret
Walker 117
"We are not beasts and do not / intend to be beaten"
Riots, Rebellions, and Uprisings 121
Riot: 60's / Maya Angelou 125
Attica—U.S.A. / Keith E. Baird 126
finish / Charles Bukowski 127
Heroes / Karl Carter 129
Revolutionary Letter #3 / Daine de Prima 130
A Mother Speaks: The Algiers Motel Incident, Detroit / Michael S.
Harper 132
Keep on Pushing / David Henderson 132
Poem against the State (of Things): 1975 / June Jordan 138
On the Birth of My Son, Malcolm Coltrane / Julius Lester 145
The Gulf / Denise Levertov 146
Coming Home, Detroit, 1968 / Philip Levine 148
If We Cannot Live as People / Charles Lynch 149
Kuntu / Larry Neal 150
Watts / Ojenke (Alvin Saxon) 152
In Orangeburg My Brothers Did / A. B. Spellman 153
"Prophets were ambushed as they spoke"
The Assassination of Malcolm X, 21 February 1965 155
A Poem for Black Hearts / Amiri Baraka 158
For Malcolm: After Mecca / Gerald W. Barrax 159
Malcolm X (for Dudley Randall) / Gwendolyn Brooks 159
Judas / Karl Carter 160
malcolm / Lucille Clifton 161
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz / Robert Hayden 161
Portrait of Malcolm X (for Charles Baxter), Etheridge Knight
163
Malcolm X—An Autobiography / Larry Neal 164
At That Moment / Raymond Patterson 166
If Blood Is Black Then Spirit Neglects My Unborn Son / Conrad Kent
Rivers 167
malcolm / Sonia Sanchez 168
For Malcolm Who Walks in the Eyes of Our Children / Quincy Troupe
169
For Malcolm X / Margaret Walker 171
That Old Time Religion / Marvin X 171
"In the panic of hooves, bull whips, and gas"
Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights March, 1965 173
Ode to Jimmy Lee / Jim "Arkansas" Benston 176
The Road to Selma / June Brindel 178
Selma, Alabama, 3/6/65 / Louis Daniel Brodsky 180
The Sun of the Future / Thich Nhat Hanh 181
Race Relations / Carolyn Kizer 183
Alabama Centennial / Naomi Long Madgett 185
On a Highway East of Selma, Alabama / Gregory Orr 186
Crumpled Notes (found in a raincoat) on Selma / Maria Varela
188
"Set afire by the cry of / BLACK POWER"
The Birth and Legacy of the Black Panther Party 193
The Black Mass Needs but One Crucifixion / Kathleen Cleaver 197
apology (to the panthers) / Lucille Clifton 199
Revolutionary Letter #20 / Diane di Prima 200
For Angela / Zack Gilbert 201
May King's Prophecy / Allen Ginsberg 202
Black Power (For all the Beautiful Black Panthers East) / Nikki
Giovanni 204
Newsletter from My Mother: 8:30 a.m., December 8, 1969 / Michael S.
Harper 205
[let the fault be with the man] / Ericka Huggins 206
The Day the Audience Walked Out on Me, and Why / Denise Levertov
207
One-Sided Shoot-out / Haki Madhubuti (Don L. Lee) 208
Revolution
Jeffrey Lamar Coleman is Associate Professor of English at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. He is the author of Spirits Distilled: Poems.
"America's ongoing civil rights movement reflects the triumphs and travails of struggles for citizenship, equality and social justice. Jeffrey Lamar Coleman's insightful and illuminating work re-directs our gaze toward the power of poetry in transforming the nation's post-war civil rights landscape. An essential book for students and scholars of the civil rights struggle." Peniel E. Joseph, author of Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama "This is an outstanding anthology. It is ingeniously conceived, scrupulously researched and beautifully composed. The poets Jeffrey Coleman chooses from range widely in style and approach, which makes the book an excellent departure from the doctrinaire. His choices emphasize how widely-affecting the American Civil Rights Movement was and is." Elizabeth Alexander, author of Power and Possibility: Essays, Reviews, and Interviews
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