African American Poetry (1870-1928): A Digital Anthology

Carrie Williams Clifford, "Preface" to "Race Rhymes" (1911)

In giving to the world this brochure, the author makes no claim to unusual poetic excellence or literary brilliance. She is seeking to call attention to a condition which she, at least, considers serious. Knowing that this may often be done more impressively through rhyme than in an elegant prose dissertation, she has taken this method of accomplishing the end sought.

Each poem has been called forth by some significant event or condition in the history of the Negro in America. The theme of the group here presented -- the uplift of humanity -- is the loftiest that can animate the heart and pen of man; the treatment, she trusts, is not wholly unworthy. Remembering the good that has been accomplished by such familiar poems as 'The Prisoner for Debt,' 'The Song of the Shirt,' and similar ones, she sends these lines forth with the prayer that they may chance some evil heart, right some wrong and raise some arm strong to deliver. 

C.W.C. 

Published in Race Rhymes, 1911

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