Pre-Civil Rights Movement Poetry II

CHILDREN'S RHYMES
By what sends
the white kids
I ain't sent:
I know I can't
be President.
What don't bug
them white kids
sure bugs me:
We know everybody
ain't free.

Lies written down
for white folks
ain't for us a-tall:
Liberty And Justice--
Huh!--For All?

-Langston Hughes 1902-1967

Pre-Civil Rights Movement Poetry

IF WE MUST DIE
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

-Claude McKay 1891-1948

Articles

Here is a link to PDF file versions of 1950s editions of the Montgomery Advertiser:
http://www.montgomeryboycott.com/newsfronts_05.htm
The headline of one can be seen below...

PROJECT!!!

This is my English 12 class project on the early Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and how it pertains to August Wilson's play "Fences." More to come...