IF WE MUST DIE by Claude McKay
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 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!
Who was Claude McKay and when was this poem written?
How would you describe the speaker’s attitude about death?
What is the speaker’s advice to their kinsmen?
According to the speaker, how should African Americans face death?
Using this poem as evidence, what were the lives of African Americans like post-Civil War in the late 1800s and early 1900s?
What are any additional thoughts that you have that come to mind while reading this poem?
I, TOO, SING AMERICA by Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
Who was Langston Hughes and when was this poem written?
Based on what you read in the poem, what do you think Hughes means by “I, too, sing America” and “I, too, am America”?
WE WEAR THE MASK by Paul Lawrence Dunbar
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, —
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
Who is Paul Lawrence Dunbar and when was this poem written?
What is the overall message of this poem?
What passage do you feel best shows this message and why?
What is “the mask” that Dunbar is referring to?
FREDERICK DOUGLASS by Robert Hayden
When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful
and terrible thing, needful to man as air,
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:
this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro
beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world
where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,
this man, superb in love and logic, this man
shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues' rhetoric,
not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,
but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives
fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.
Who is Robert Hayden and when was this poem written?
Who is the namesake of the poem? Why do you think he was used as the foundation of this poem?
When does Hayden say that freedom will finally come?
REFLECTION
Which poem do you feel is the most powerful? Why did you choose that poem?
What would you say is the overall message or theme of these poems?