Women of the Early Harlem Renaissance: African American Women Writers 1900-1922

Race-Hate (Carrie Williams Clifford, 1922)

(On the East St. Louis riot, July 28, 1917)
 
What infamies have been condoned, O Hate,
What sin, what guilt, what horrors in thy name!
Such bestial revelries which else would shame
The darkest heathen in his virgin state!
Yet know that judgment on thine acts doth wait,
And Time will write with pen of leaping flame
The ghastly story—how thou didst defame
God's living temples—craven, crafty Hate!
For thou hast none deceived, not e'en thyself,
Thy bloody hands are raised for power and pelf!
Hath not the lesson of the Ages taught,
Thy seeming triumphs are too dearly bought?
Cold seas of blood convulse thy coward heart;
Already crushed, defeated, doomed thou art! 
 

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