- Countee Cullen, "Incident"Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.
Friday, October 9, 2015
Baltimore Blues
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3 comments:
Deliberate cruelty is always wrong –– especially when directed at small defenseless animals and innocent children.
I've often wondered if life wouldn't have been kinder and gentler to the Negroes if the Civil War had never happened? No I don't believe slavery was a good thing, but the massive destruction, widespread upheaval, and horrifying violence visited upon the South must surely have fostered a fierce hatred of "Yankees" along with a tendency for impotent, impoverished Southerners to take out their rage and frustration at bitter defeat on blacks.
Just a thought –– but one that has persisted for many years.
There was, no doubt, a great fear of retaliation by ex-slaves. Were there not, there never would have been a Klan or Jim Crow.
Ir a Civil Rights Movements!
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