A poem by Langston Hughes, Black American poet and writer, entitled “Scottsboro” from Book IV called “Out of The Depths.” This chapter is focused on man’s pursuit of remedy for social injustice:
8 BLACK BOYS IN A SOUTHERN JAIL
WORLD TURN PALE!
8 black boys and one white lie.
Is it too much to die?
Is it much to die when immortal feet,
March with down Time’s street,
When beyond steel bars sound the deathless drums
Like a mighty heart-beat as they come?
Who comes?
Christ,
Who fought alone,
John Brown.
That mad mob
That tore the Bastille down
Stone by stone.
Moses
Jeanne d’Arc
Dessalines
Nat Turner
Fighters for the free.
Lenin with the flag blood red.
(Not dead! Not dead! None of these is dead.)
Gandhi
Sandino
Evangelista, too,
To walk with you–
8 BLACK BOYS IN A SOUTHERN JAIL.
WORLD TURN PALE!
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