African American Poetry: A Digital Anthology

Anonymous, "A Remarkable Epitaph" (1907)

[Editor's Note: The following is a remarkable epitaph which stands over the grave of an old slave who was buried in Concord, Mass., a great many years ago. This old colored man purchased his own freedom by doing odd turns during idle hours. The writer of this epitaph is unknown.]

"God wills us free; man wills us slaves.
I will as God wills; God's will be done.
Here lies the body of John Jack,
A native of Africa who died March, 1773, aged about sixty years.
Though born in a land of slavery,
He was born free.
Though he lived in a land of liberty,
He lived a slave;
Till by his honest though stolen labour,
He acquired the source of slavery,
Which gave him his freedom;
Though not long before Death, the great tyrant,
Gave him his final emancipation,
And put him on a footing with kings.
Though a slave to vice,
He practised those virtues
Without which kings are but slaves."

Published in The Voice of the Negro, May 1907
 

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