Complete the three (3) activities below.
The Jim Crow laws of the Reconstruction era legalized segregation in transportation, schools, parks and other public places. African American poet Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer protested against the humiliation caused by such legalized discrimination . Although her poems speak with strong emotion, Moorer supports her arguments with concrete examples. As you read the poem, which was published in 1907, consider the problems faced by African Americans under segregation. |
Read the poem and answer the questions.
If within the cruel Southland you have chanced to take a ride,
You the Jim Crow cars have noticed, how they crush a Negro’s pride,
How he pays a first class passage and a second class receives,
Gets the worst accommodations ev’ry friend of the truth believes.
‘Tis the rule that all conductors, in the service of the train,
Practice gross’ discriminations in the Negro—such is plain--
If a drunkard is a white man, at his mercy Negroes are,
Legalized humiliation is the Negro Jim Crow car.
‘Tis a license given white men, they may go just where they please,
In the white man’s car or Negro’s will they move with perfect ease,
If complaint is made by Negroes the conductor will go out
Till the whites are through carousing, then he shows himself about.
They will often raise a riot, butcher up the Negroes there,
Unmolested will they quarrel, use their pistols, rant and swear,
They will smoke among the ladies though offensive the cigar;
‘Tis the place to drink their whiskey, in the Negro Jim Crow car.
If a Negro shows resistance to his treatment by a tough,
At some station he’s arrested for the same, though not enough,
He is thrashed or lynched or tortured as will please the demon’s rage,
Mobbed, or course, by “unknown parties,” thus is closed the darkened page.
You the Jim Crow cars have noticed, how they crush a Negro’s pride,
How he pays a first class passage and a second class receives,
Gets the worst accommodations ev’ry friend of the truth believes.
‘Tis the rule that all conductors, in the service of the train,
Practice gross’ discriminations in the Negro—such is plain--
If a drunkard is a white man, at his mercy Negroes are,
Legalized humiliation is the Negro Jim Crow car.
‘Tis a license given white men, they may go just where they please,
In the white man’s car or Negro’s will they move with perfect ease,
If complaint is made by Negroes the conductor will go out
Till the whites are through carousing, then he shows himself about.
They will often raise a riot, butcher up the Negroes there,
Unmolested will they quarrel, use their pistols, rant and swear,
They will smoke among the ladies though offensive the cigar;
‘Tis the place to drink their whiskey, in the Negro Jim Crow car.
If a Negro shows resistance to his treatment by a tough,
At some station he’s arrested for the same, though not enough,
He is thrashed or lynched or tortured as will please the demon’s rage,
Mobbed, or course, by “unknown parties,” thus is closed the darkened page.
The jazz singer Billie Holiday stepped into a studio with an eight-piece band to record Strange Fruit. This jarring song about the horrors of lynching was not only Holiday’s biggest hit, but it would become one of the most influential protest songs of the 20th Century – continuing to speak to us about racial violence today.
Watch the video and answer the questions.
Dudley Randall's poem, "Booker T. and W. E. B.," covers some of the main points of disagreement between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois concerning which course of action was best for African Americam people 30 and 40 years after the end of Slavery in the United States.
Read the poem and answer the questions.
“I don’t agree,” said W.E.B.
“For what can property avail If dignity and justice fail? Unless you help to make the laws, They’ll steal your house with trumped-up clause. A rope’s as tight, a fire as hot, No matter how much cash you’ve got. Speak soft, and try your little plan, But as for me, I’ll be a man.” |