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Interracial, Multiracial, and Race Relations Themes

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This tag references writings dealing with relationships that cross racial borders, including friendships, antagonistic relationships, and romances.

We also use this category for poems and prose texts that reference mixed-race or multiracial people, such as W.E.B. DuBois' poem "The Quadroon," Georgia Douglas Johnson's "The Octoroon" or Rosalie Jonas' "The Octaroon's Ball."  Some poems use the term 'mulatto' to describe mixed race people; this term is now of course archaic and might be considered offensive, but it was widely used during this historical period. 

(See our note on Historical Language.) 

In the poems linked below, some use the "tragic mulatto" trope, where the true nature of a person's mixed heritage might be a secret liability; the "tragic mulatto" is of course also a well-known trope in fiction from this period. An example of such a poem might be Countee Cullen's "To One Who Crossed a Line (She Crosses)," which describes a woman who passed as white for a time before returning to the African American community. (As of this time, we have not separately tagged peoms dealing with racial passing, though we may begin to do so. For now, "passing" poems are also included in the list below.) 

Other poems below are more celebratory and proud (see Joseph S. Cotter's "The Mulatto To His Critics" for an instance of a proud 'mulatto' poem). 

We are also including a limited number of works of fiction that deal with these themes, including Nella Larsen's Quicksand and Passing.

Contents of this tag:

  1. Introducing Nella Larsen's "Passing" + Excerpts from Contemporary Reviews
  2. Langston Hughes, "Mulatto" (1927)
  3. Langston Hughes, "Negro Dancers" (1925)
  4. Langston Hughes, "Harlem Night Club" (1926)
  5. Otto Bohanan, "Mammy" (1917)
  6. Claude McKay, "The Barrier" (1919)
  7. Langston Hughes, "Cross" (1925)
  8. Claude McKay, "Alfonso, Dressing to Wait at Table" (1922)
  9. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Octoroon" (1919)
  10. Countee Cullen, "Tableau (For Donald Duff)" (1925)
  11. Langston Hughes, "The White Ones" (1924)
  12. Lucian B. Watkins, "Anita" (1907)
  13. Leon Laviaux, "The Ebon Muse" (Full Text; translated 1914)
  14. Donald Jeffrey Hayes, "Confession" (1927)
  15. Countee Cullen, "Two Who Crossed a Line (She Crosses)" (1925)
  16. Zora Neale Hurston, "Drenched in Light" (1924)
  17. Edna Porter, "That Yaller Gal (La. 1924)" (1925)
  18. Nella Larsen, "Quicksand" (1928; full text / ebook)
  19. Jessie Fauset, "Touche" (1927)
  20. Carrie Williams Clifford, "Paul Laurence Dunbar" (1922)
  21. W.E.B. Du Bois, "The Quadroon" (1911)
  22. T. Thomas Fortune, "The Savage Dreamer" (1905)
  23. Albery A Whitman, "An Idyl of the South" (full text) (1901)
  24. Bertha Johnston, "I Met A Little Blue-Eyed Girl" (1912)
  25. Joseph S. Cotter, Jr. "The Mulatto To His Critics" (1918)
  26. Maurice N. Corbett, "White Friends" (1914)
  27. Countee Cullen, "Caprice" (1925)
  28. Countee Cullen, "To My Fairer Brethren" (1925)
  29. Nellie R. Bright (Nellie Rathbone Bright), "To One Who Might Have Been My Friend" (1927)
  30. Countee Cullen, "Two Who Crossed a Line (He Crosses)" (1925)
  31. Frances R. Marie Smith, "You of Another Hue" (1927)
  32. Fenton Johnson, "The Mulatto's Song" (1913)
  33. Poems by James Weldon Johnson in "The Book of American Negro Poetry" (1922)
  34. Marie Brown Frazier, "Dancing Fool" (1928)
  35. Poems by Claude McKay in "The Book of American Negro Poetry" (1922)
  36. Claude McKay, "One Year After" (1922)
  37. Countee Cullen, "Extenuation to Certain Critics" (1927)
  38. Rosalie Jonas, "The Octoroon Ball" (1911)
  39. Claude McKay, "Commemoration" (1922)
  40. George Marion McClellan, "An Octoroon's Farewell" (1895)
  41. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Riddle" 1925)
  42. Frank Horne, "Arabesque" (1927)
  43. James Weldon Johnson, "The White Witch" (1915)
  44. Dwight Fairfield, "A Modern Othello" (1902)
  45. Lois Augusta Cuglar, "Consecration" (1927)
  46. William Stanley Braithwaite, "In My Lady's Praise" (1903)
  47. Carrie Williams Clifford, "My Baby (On Reading 'Souls of Black Folk')" (1911)
  48. T. Thomas Fortune, "Sadie Fontaine" (1905)
  49. Waring Cuney, "Railway Club" (1929)
  50. W. H. Goode, "A Truce to Peace" (1902)
  51. T. Thomas Fortune, "Sadie Fontaine" (1905)
  52. William Stanley Braithwaite, "Rye Bread" (1927)
  53. Donald Jeffrey Hayes, "Confession" (1927)
  54. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Aliens" (1922)
  55. Claude McKay, "Quashie to Buccra" (1912)
  56. Norma Hendricks, "The Mulatto" (1928)
  57. Katherine D. Tillman, "Black and White" (1902)
  58. Arna Bontemps, "Angela" (1927)
  59. Fenton Johnson, "The Mulatto's Song" (1913)
  60. John P. Davis, "Verisimilitude" (1927)
  61. Claude McKay, "Flirtation" (1921)