#AmericanWriters
In places like Selma, Alabama, Kids say, In places like Chicago and New York...
Goin’ down the road, Lawd, Goin’ down the road. Down the road, Lawd, Way, way down the road. Got to find somebody
You sicken me with lies, With truthful lies. And with your pious faces. And your wide, out—stretched, mock—welcome, Christian hands.
The calm, Cool face of the river Asked me for a kiss.
Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you— Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple?
Clean the spittoons, boy. Detroit, Chicago, Atlantic City, Palm Beach.
Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams
I know I am The Negro Problem Being wined and dined, Answering the usual questions That come to white mind
Being walkers with the dawn and mo… Walkers with the sun and morning, We are not afraid of night, Nor days of gloom, Nor darkness—
Oh, silver tree! Oh, shining rivers of the soul! In a Harlem cabaret Six long—headed jazzers play. A dancing girl whose eyes are bold
When the old junk man Death Comes to gather up our bodies And toss them into the sack of obl… I wonder if he will find The corpse of a white multi—millio…
When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music abou… Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest so… Rising out of the ground like a sw…
You say I O.K.ed LONG DISTANCE? O.K.ed it when? My goodness, Central That was then!
Democracy will not come Today, this year Nor ever Through compromise and fear. I have as much right
To fling my arms wide In some place of the sun, To whirl and to dance Till the white day is done. Then rest at cool evening