Maurice Corbett, "Skilled Workmen" (1914)
Such splendid working men are they,
That o'er America today,
When unions turn to trouble makers
By standing forth as contract breakers,
Threatening the land's industrial life,
And causing hardship, hatred, strife,
And the curse of Cain to blanch men's faces,
Black men are found to take their places.
Men often ask how this is done,
And how on earth have black men won
Their treasure of industrial knowledge,
And where located was the college
Whence sprang such skillful denizens
Competing with the citizens
Whose unions barred them at their doors
To find them paying off old scores.
Know then that slavery was their school.
The large slave owners as a rule,
Had each, a slave to learn a trade
Embracing every useful grade.
And when came freedom to the nation,
The Negroes soon found occupation
As trained mechanics in demand,
And they, the only ones on hand.
The frugal and the thoughtful ones
Had as apprentices, their sons,
Who, by their sturdy pluck and will
Inherited their fathers' skill.
No great school of technology
Taught them the etymology
Of those skilled trades, although 'tis true
Of college bred ones were a few.
Black boys can now obtain such knowledge
Through study in some native college,
Known to the states as "A. and M.,"
The youths' industrial lamps to trim.
Then there is Hampton Institute
Kittrell, Tuskegee Institute,
And other worthy seminaries
Which are to these auxiliaries.
Likewise the schools of higher learning
Have shown of late that they were turning
To manual training some attention
Thereby avoiding much dissension
'Mongst factions of our population
As to the kind of education
Best suited to the queer condition
Of men found in the blacks' position.
And in the future, should they fail
As sons of Harvard and of Yale,
In life's great work to share a part,
Still masters will they be of art,
* From institutions noted, great,
With teachers fully adequate
Wisdom's choice teachings to impart
To him who shows a willing heart.
A most magnificent array
Of standard schools do we portray
When taking time their names to call,
Of those that stand a mighty wall
Of strength, and monument of light,
As trusty guides through pitchy night
Of ignorance compact and gross,
Which blights the lives it comes across
Academies not in the list
Are products of philanthropists,
So common at the present day,
And thus have we a good array
Of colleges and standard schools
To train our youth to know the rules
Which nerve them for the cares of strife
That they must overcome in life.
Though jealous and malicious foes
Their future usefulness oppose,
Though make they efforts to prescribe
The kind of learning blacks imbibe,
And though they swear the blacks must curb
Ambition's thirst, lest they disturb
The fountain of the nation's peace,
These institutions will not cease.
On, in their upward course they'll go,
And wisdom's fruitful seeds will sow,
Till those who do the blacks deny
Their rights, shall not give reason why
That they could find none qualified
Among the number that applied,
With needed intellectual skill
That could the place with honor fill.
Besides, where wisdom's flag has flown
Who dares attempt to haul it down?
What wretch would dare to show the "brass"
To pick a nation or a class
Of freeborn citizens to be
Debarred from reaching knowledge's tree?
Of cowardice the language smacks
Opposing educated blacks.
What have these institutions done
Which should have endless praises won
From men bestripped of prejudice?
What agency or edifice
Through whose influence you can trace
The uplift of the Negro race
From beasts of slavery consigned,
To creatures cultured and refined?
* *I mention some of the leading colleges as they recur to my mind. Some just as worthy are perhaps left out.
First we give Howard University, because of its location and prominence, and then we name them as follows: Lincoln, Wilberforce, Harbison, Shaw, Atlanta University," Biddle, Chaffin, Fiske, Leland, Livingston, Roger Williams, State University, Paul Quinn, Wiley, Meharry, Chaflin, Spelman, Union at Richmond, and Union at Atlanta, Clark, Georgia State, Central Tennessee, Morgan, Southland, Morris Brown, Knoxville College, Tougaloo, Shorter, Bennett, and Ballard.
Published in The Harp of Ethiopia (1914)