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Progress and Racial Uplift

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This page collect poems featuring themes of progress, protest, and racial uplift for the African American community. 

The "Uplift" poem has a long history in African American writing. A very important figure in its history might be Frances E.W. Harper, who wrote many important poems in this genre going back to her abolitionist poetry of the 1850s. Classic post-1870 poems in this genre from Harper might be "The Fifteenth Amendment" [1871] or "Songs for the People" [1895]. 

Uplift poetry was also a mainstay of two African American magazines from 1900-1910, Voice of the Negro and The Colored American Magazine. Daniel Webster Davis' poem "The Voice of the Negro" (1904), appearing in one of the first issues of the magazine with the same title, is a fine example. Another strong example might be James D. Corrothers' "The Psalm of a Race" (1903). An example not from the magazines might be J. Mord Allen's "The Psalm of the Uplift" (1906), which also appeared in Kerlin's 1923 collection. 

The 1910s and 20s were particularly intense periods of activity for the nascent African American Civil Rights movement. The Niagara Movement (1905-1909) led to the creation of the NAACP in 1910. The Crisis would be the official magazine for that organization, and it was edited by W.E.B. Du Bois. Starting with some of the very first issues, Du Bois includes poetry in the magazine, often oriented towards racial justice themes. Other magazines such as Opportunity would also publish a fair amount of poetry starting in the late 1910s. 

Other poems related to topics such as Black excellence / the 'Talented Tenth', Black involvement in highly visible public roles, and poems in tribute to Black leaders such as Frederick Douglass may fall under this category. (There is also a separate Tag category for Tribute poems to Frederick Douglass...)

One of the most famous poems in this category might be James Weldon Johnson's "Fifty Years," which was first published in the New York Times in January 1913, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. 

Gwendolyn B. Bennett's 1924 poem "To Usward" was published in connection with the publication of Jessie Fauset's novel There is Confusion, a major event in the emerging Harlem Renaissance. This poem contains a self-consciousness that was fairly unique for the moment of its publication -- Bennetti is aware of the diversity of ways of experiencing Blackness as a dynamic affirmative identity, and sees the transformative potential in embracing it as such: "Not self-contained with smug identity / But conscious of the strength in entity." 

And Otto Bohanan's "The Dawn's Awake" is a broad celebration of the beginning of a new era, which might be intepreted as linked to the growth of the civil rights movement around the NAACP. 
 

Contents of this tag:

  1. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "To Usward" (1924)
  2. Joseph S. Cotter, Jr., "A Sonnet to the Negro Soldiers" (1918)
  3. Jessie Fauset, "Oriflamme" (1920)
  4. Langston Hughes, "I , Too" (1925)
  5. James Weldon Johnson, "Fifty Years" (1913)
  6. Chapter 1a: Poems of Racial Uplift, 1890-1899
  7. Ethyl Lewis, "The Optimist" (1920)
  8. Ode to Ethiopia by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1895)
  9. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Hope" (1917)
  10. Langston Hughes, "Poem ["We Have Tomorrow..."]" (1926)
  11. Helene Johnson, "The Road" (1926)
  12. Arthur Tunnell, "On Segregation" (1914)
  13. James D. Corrothers, "Paul Laurence Dunbar" (1906)
  14. Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, "Honor's Appeal to Justice" (1899)
  15. Olivia Ward Bush Banks, "A Hero of San Juan [Hill]" (1899)
  16. Lewis Alexander, "The Dark Brother" (1927)
  17. Bessie Brent Madison, "For Ethiopia" (1921)
  18. Mary Ashe Lee, "Afmerica" (1886 version)
  19. Maggie Pogue Johnson, "The Negro Has a Chance" (1910)
  20. Annette Browne, "Little Brown Boy" (1921)
  21. Esther A. Yates “Fettered Liberty” (1915)
  22. Gertrude Mossell, "Tell the North That We Are Rising" (1894)
  23. Joseph S. Cotter, "The Prophet" (1920)
  24. Otto Bohanan, "The Dawn's Awake!" (1917)
  25. L. Mattes, "To the Negro" (1925)
  26. Lucian B. Watkins, "The Black Madonna And Her Babe" (1918)
  27. Mattie Mae Stafford, "(Poem within) Colored Women's Economic Council of Los Angeles" (1928)
  28. Carrie Williams Clifford, "Shall We Fight The Jim Crow Car?" (1911)
  29. Sarah Collins Fernandis, "The Torch Bearer" (1916)
  30. George Reginald Margetson, "Mary Evans Wilson (A Tribute)" (1928)
  31. W.E. Dancer, "De Negro Problem" (1909)
  32. J. Mord Allen, "The Psalm of the Uplift" (1906)
  33. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "God's Garden" (1927)
  34. Louise Cass Evans, "Booker Washington" (1908)
  35. Anna Elizabeth Cofer, "The Future of the Negro" (1902)
  36. Raymond Garfield Dandridge, "Forward!"
  37. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Black Runner" (1928)
  38. Charles Bertram Johnson, "The Cup of Knowledge" (1905)
  39. Rev. P.A. Scott, "Aim High" (1902)
  40. Raymond Garfield Dandridge, "Awake" (1917)
  41. William H. Tibbs, "Awake! Arise! Onward!" (1923)
  42. Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Slow Through the Dark" (1902)
  43. Carrie Law Morgan Figgs, "The Negro's Upward Flight" (1921)
  44. Frances E.W. Harper, "Fifteenth Amendment" (1871)
  45. H.T. Johnson, "A Song of Hope" (1904)
  46. Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, "Pulse Beats" (1923)
  47. Langston Hughes, "Youth" (1924)
  48. Carrie Law Morgan Figgs, "We Are Marching" (1921)
  49. J. Pauline Smith, "A Prayer" (1922)
  50. Carrie Williams Clifford (Carrie W. Clifford), "Warning" (1928)
  51. Frank B. Coffin, "Frances E. Harper (Tribute)" (1897)
  52. Walter Everette Hawkins, "The Messenger" (1923)
  53. Poems by Charles Bertram Johnson in "The Book of American Negro Poetry" (1922)
  54. Carrie Law Morgan Figgs, "The Negro Has Played His Part" (1920)
  55. Carrie Williams Clifford, "All Hail! Ye Colored Graduates" (1911)
  56. Frank B. Coffin, "Voice from the South" (1897)
  57. Poems by Otto Bohanan in "The Book of American Negro Poetry" (1922)
  58. Elsie Taylor Du Trieuille, "The New Negro" (1928)
  59. George Reginald Margetson, "When" (1907)
  60. Carrie Williams Clifford, "Marching to Conquest" (1911)
  61. Raymond Garfield Dandridge, "Supplication" (1920)
  62. Robert H. Bonner, Jr, "A New Day" (1928)
  63. Claude McKay, "The International Spirit" (1928)
  64. James D. Corrothers, "The Psalm of a Race" (1903)
  65. Carrie Williams Clifford, "The Dreamers" (1911)
  66. Katherine D. Tillman, "A Hymn of Praise" (1902)
  67. Raymond Garfield Dandridge, "Opportunity" (1920)
  68. Walter Everette Hawkins, "To the 'Guardian' of Boston, Mass." (1909)
  69. Frances E.W. Harper, "The Present Age" (1896)
  70. Countee Cullen, "Black Majesty" (1928)
  71. Mattie Mae Stafford, "Ode to the Brotherhood" (1927)
  72. James D. Corrothers, "The Psalm of a Race" (1903)
  73. Carrie Williams Clifford, "We'll Die For Liberty" (1911)
  74. Maurice N. Corbett, "The Future" (1914)
  75. Walter Everette Hawkins, "To W.E. Burghardt Du Bois" (1909)
  76. Daniel Webster Davis, "The Voice of the Negro" (1904)
  77. Ann Lawrence (Ann Lawrence-Lucas), "The Messenger" (1924)
  78. Frances Smith Brown, "Seeing the Light" (1927)
  79. George Reginald Margetson, "Booker T. Washington" (1909)
  80. Lucian B. Watkins, "A Prayer of the Race That God Made Black" (1919)
  81. George Marion McClellan, "Daybreak" (1916)
  82. Benjamin Griffith Brawley, "The Dawn" (1904)
  83. Will H. Hendrickson, "Dreamer" (1924)
  84. Alonzo Milton Skrine, "The Negro's Worth" (1900)
  85. George Compton, "The Black Man" (1909)
  86. Richard E.S. Toomey, "The American Negro" (1901)
  87. Frances E.W. Harper, "Songs For The People" (1895)
  88. James Edward McCall, "The New Negro" (1927)
  89. Mae V. Cowdery, "Goal" (1927)