Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/222

200 to Madagascar. The poet was born in the city of Washington in 1895 and now resides in Cleveland, Ohio.

To a young student in Columbia University we are indebted for some of the most symmetrical and effective free-verse poems that have come to my attention. His name is Langston Hughes. For information about him I refer the reader to the first index, at the end of this book. This poem appeared in The Crisis, January, 1922:

I am a Negro: Black as the night is black, Black like the depths of my Africa. I’ve been a slave: Cæsar told me to keep his door-steps clean, I brushed the boots of Washington. I’ve been a worker: Under my hand the pyramids arose. I made mortar for the Woolworth building. I’ve been a singer: All the way from Africa to Georgia I carried my sorrow songs. I made ragtime. I’ve been a victim: The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo. They lynch me now in Texas.