| James Weldon Johnson, ed. (1871–1938). The Book of American Negro Poetry. 1922. |
| |
| Oriflamme |
| | | Jessie Fauset |
| | | | | “I can remember when I was a little, young girl, how my old mammy would sit out of doors in the evenings and look up at the stars and groan, and I would say, ‘Mammy, what makes you groan so?’ And she would say, ‘I am groaning to think of my poor children; they do not know where I be and I don’t know where they be. I look up at the stars and they look up at the stars!’”—Sojourner Truth. |
| |
| |
| I THINK I see her sitting bowed and black, | |
| Stricken and seared with slavery’s mortal scars, | |
| Reft of her children, lonely, anguished, yet | |
| Still looking at the stars. | |
| |
| Symbolic mother, we thy myriad sons, | 5 |
| Pounding our stubborn hearts on Freedom’s bars, | |
| Clutching our birthright, fight with faces set, | |
| Still visioning the stars! | |
| |
|
|
|
