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

E. Lucian Waithe, "What Answer?" (1927)

What Answer? 

By E. Lucien Waithe 

What will the pink man say
When this world is no more
And a man no longer a man
But a spirit impure
Waiting at the court of his God
To answer for the wrongs
He did on the sod?
What will the pink man say?

What will his proud spirit say
When his God should ask him:
"How have you treated your brother,
Your dark brother Jim?"
Will he hang his haughty spirit head
Remembering the tree
And those that he bled?
What will this proud spirit say?


Published in The Messenger, May 1927

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