Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/263

Rh will be represented here by a sonnet, written, I believe, shortly after the race-riot in the national capital, July, 1919. It has been widely reprinted in the Negro newspapers.

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—oh, 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! Oh, kinsmen! We must meet the common foe; Though far outnumbered, let us still be brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow. 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!

Race consciousness has recently attained an extraordinary pitch in the Negro, and there seems to be no prospect of any abatement. The verse-smiths one and all have borne witness to a feeling of great intensity on all subjects pertaining to their race—the discriminations and injustices practised against it, the limitations that would be imposed upon it, the contumelies that would offend it. Ardent appeals are therefore made to race pride and ardent exhortations to race unity. The