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Interracial, Multiracial, and Race Relations Poems

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

We also use this category for poems 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 Quadroon'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). 

Contents of this tag:

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