Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer: Verses about Death

In the love of home and country and the flag of Uncle Sam,
Can the loyalty be doubted of a dusky son of Ham?
Wheresoever duty calls him, as a freedman or a slave,
The response is ever hearty when 'Old Glory' he would save.

'Twas the war of Revolution, when a Negro's blood was first,
To be shed for independence, when a yoke the land had cursed;
Crispus Attucks died in Boston, on State street he paid the debt,
Liberty his blood has planted and the tree is growing yet.

Ask the spirit of Pitcairn how he came to meet his death?
Where and who it was that brought him down to breathe the dying breath?
'Twas the Negro Salem's bullet at the charge of Bunker's Hill,
Bringing to the whites their freedom but to Negroes naught but ill.

In the battle of New Orleans, eighteen fourteen was the year,
When the Negro fought with valor till the victory was clear;
Jackson paid this glowing tribute—may the spirit never lag—
'None more strong and none more useful, none more loyal to the flag.'

O, how brave the Negro soldiers when the Civil war was fought!
Shall they fight such noble battles in the nation's cause for naught?
Hark! the battle cry of Charleston! at Fort Wagner is the place!
At Port Hudson and Fort Pillow how the rebel guns they face!

Fifty-fourth of Massachusetts—may such regiments be praised—
By its valor at Fort Wagner, North and South became amazed!
Hall began as color-bearer but was killed on duty grand,
To the spot went William Carney and the colors took in hand.

Wounded many times was Carney, shot in head, in arm and thigh,
On one knee he fell and crawling kept the colors flying high,
Blood upon the banner streaming while his words the action crowned;
'Boys I've kept aloft 'Old Glory' and it never touched the ground!'

Colonel Stafford was disabled, Dwight his men to battle led,
With great feeling at New Orleans, Stafford to the sergeant said,
'Guard, protect defend these colors,' 'Yes,' he answered, 'though I die
I will bring them back in honor or to God report the why.'

All the world has heard the story of the Cuban war with Spain,
Ah! the sound of Negro valor falls upon the ear again,
At Elkaney and San Juan how they helped to win the day,
Near the town of Santiago, held the enemy at bay!

Side by side with other soldiers being in complexion white,
Negroes died to take San Juan in the thickest of the fight,
Thus they gained the worthy plaudit from the loyal, brave and true;
'Negroes on the field of battle, dignify the nation's blue.'

Shall the prejudice existing in the country now, increase,
While the Negro's patriotism merits rest at home and peace?
Nay, the hydra-headed monster in the end will surely die,
We expect the right to triumph over evil by and by.

Whites alone upon the jury in a number of the states,
Thus they crush a helpless Negro with their prejudicial hates;
Legal ills they thrust upon him, and the tale is passing sad—
Equal rights with white men? Never! Color-phobia makes them mad.

'Tis the training of the children, every Negro to suppress,
They their spleen may vent upon him and he happy, none the less,
They will boast aloud in anger if by Negroes they are crossed,
'If we shoot or kill a Negro, not a cent will be the cost.'

Juries represent the people and their sentiments make known,
When a Negro comes in question there's discrimination shown.
They are bold to make assertion that they will not do the same
For a Negro as a white man, and no feeling comes of shame.

Jurymen have made confession after trial had been made
Of a Negro, and 'He's guilty!' was the verdict there displayed.
Stern remorse so touched the conscience, they the story did relate,
How the verdict they had rendered was to stay the dying fate.

'It was hard to say him guilty, for the man, we thought, was clear.
But a mob was making clamors that were terrible to hear.'
'Punishment or death!' it shouted, and around began to press;
And of two impending evils, we have chosen him the less.

Thus we legalized the lynchers, we their words to court have brought,
And the innocent convicted! how revolting is the thought!
When a mob has forced a jury to a stand against the right,
All the waters of the ocean cannot make the conscience white.


Once a Negro girl was saucy, and the wife the husband told,
Who in haste arraigned the servant and began to swear and scold.
Then he whipped her without mercy—straightway she to law applied.
Passing strange—they found him guilty, and the judge was sorely tried.
This he said, in making sentence, 'No disfavor comes to you,
You have only done as others, or as I myself would do,
If your servants vex the mistress, thrash them out again, I say,
Go to jail ten minutes only, and a fine of five cents pay!'
If a judge is conscientious, then the people vote him out,
His partiality to white men they must know, beyond a doubt.
No equality for Negroes in the law the world must know,
If he fails to make distinctions, from the bench they'll have him go.
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This injustice is a cancer, in the nation's breast it lives,
Quietly and unmolested, awful is the death it gives.
It results from color-phobia, which the God of right defies,
Slaves of prejudice, take warning! pause before the nation dies.
All the land is running riot, laws are trampled in the face,
Negroes must be law-abiding; whites alone the laws debase.
Wrong upon itself is coiling, hissing serpent of the times,
Whites in self-defense are crying, 'Shield us from our people's crimes.'
Barbarism fills the country, all for safety take alarm,
From the lowest to the highest, no one now is free from harm;
Anarchy is rife among us, all resulting from the same,
Gross injustice of the court-room brings the nation into shame.
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Lawlessness is at a premium, woeful penalty it brings,
Relic of the middle ages is the present state of things.
To the winds we now are sowing, and the whirl-wind comes at length,
Evils cast upon the waters come again with added strength.

Have you heard, my friend, the slander that the Negro has to face?
Immorality, the grossest, has been charged up to his race.
Listen, listen to my story, as I now proceed to tell
Of conditions in the Southland, where the mass of Negroes dwell.

Ev'ry city, town or county, ev'ry state on Southern soil,
Has mulattoes in its borders, found among the sons of toil.
Can you tell from whence they landed; or to whither shall they go?
Is the Negro race responsible alone, I'd like to know?

When a man among the Negroes is the least suspected there
Of an intimate relation with a daughter that is fair,
Then an angry mob arises and he answers for the same
In a death, the worst in cruelty the company can name.

Though the noonday sun is shining at the time the lynching's done,
Still the officers of justice can't detect a single one,
Who partook in Negro killing, for the deed no one is blamed,
And inside the nation's senate comes a voice, 'We're not ashamed.'

Is the same true when a white man leads a Negro girl astray?
When he takes away her virtue, is the same true? tell me, pray,
Do the press and pulpit clamor or condemn the mighty wrong?
Is there sentiment against it? is the burden of my song.

When the case is thus presented, they are silent as the grave,
And the law at once is powerless a Negro's name to save,
So you see the same continues and the truth is like a flood,
That in veins of Southern Negroes flow the best of Southern blood.

Can you tell of these mulattoes, did they fall here from the sky?
How is this that they're among us? can you tell the reason why?
Who's to blame for their existence? is the Negro race alone?
If there are such freaks in nature it is time to make them known.

'Tis a custom born of slavery when master's law and might,
Was enforced upon the bondsman without question of the right,
And the parson preached on Sunday how the servant should obey
All the mandates of the master, let them be whate'er they may.

O, how sad the tales of bondage when persuasive measures failed,
How they tortured Negro women till their hellish plans prevailed!
Women faithful to their virtue were as martyrs sent to rest,
Others yielded to the tempter, weary, helpless and distressed.

So the spirit lives at present for the master hand to rule,
Cook or washer, nurse or housemaid passes through this training school,
Lo! the greatest of temptations, men and devils there invent,
And present them to the servants, on their ruin so intent.

There's no friend to whom the dusky maiden can appeal for aid,
To the mistress of the home to speak of such she is afraid,
In the law there's no protection that a Negro girl can claim,
None to rescue, none to pity, so she enters into shame.

Now reflect for just a moment, in the light of what you see,
Which is worse, to yield the tempter or the evil one to be?
Can you still believe that Negroes are immoral more than whites?
O, how different the picture if the Negro had his rights!

There's a God who rules in justice, one who feels his children's pain,
So we know that sin and darkness cannot always hope to reign,
All the ills to Negro women will the Father bring to light,
For the Judge, the only Judge of all creation will do right.

Have you ever heard of lynching in the great United States?
'Tis an awful, awful story that the Negro man relates,
How the mobs the laws have trampled, both the human and divine,
In their killing helpless people as their cruel hearts incline.

Not the heathen! 'Tis the Christian with the Bible in his hand,
Stands for pain and death to tyrannize the weaklings of the land;
Not the red man nor the Spaniard kills the blacks of Uncle Sam,
'Tis the white man of the nation who will lunch the sons of Ham.

To a limb upon the highway does a Negro's body hang,
Riddled with a hundred bullets from the bloody, thirsty gang;
Law and order thus defying, and there's none to say them nay.
"Thus," they say, to keep their power, "Negroes must be kept at bay."

How his back is lacerated! how the scene is painted red,
By the blood of one poor Negro till he numbers with the dead!
Listen to the cry of anguish from a soul that God has made,
But it fails to reach the pity of the demons in the raid.

To a tree we find the Negro and to him a chain beside,
There a horse to it is fastened and the whip to him applied.
Thus he pulls the victim's body till it meets a dying fate,
And to history is given a new scandal to relate.

Limb from limb he's torn asunder! See the savage lynchers grin!
Then the flesh is cut in pieces and the souvenirs begin;
Each must have the piece allotted for the friends at home to see,
Relatives will cluster round him, laughing, dancing, filled with glee.

To a stake they bind the Negro, pile the trash around him high,
Make the fire about his body; it is thus that he must die.
Burn him slowly, hear the lynchers: "That's the part we most enjoy!
Tell it out in all the nation how we killed a Negro boy!"

Savage mob a Negro's chasing, and to catch him must not fail;
If it does, another's taken, there to force from him the tale
Where the fleeing man is hiding; if the facts he cannot raise,
Though his innocence protesting, for the same by death he pays.

"'Tis a Negro's blood we're craving; such will have at any cost;
We must lynch the one in keeping, for the other one is lost!"
This they say, and when they're questioned answer like this is the why,
"To the race at large a warning here a Negro man shall die!"

O, how brave the Southern white man when, a hundred men to one,
Lynch a lone, defenceless Negro, when each lyncher has a gun.
If at midnight or the noonday, the result is all the same,
Law is powerless to hinder, and the nation shares the blame.

Lynchers go into the Senate and their savagery uphold,
How they shoot and butcher Negroes is the story that is told.
Guns and ropes they have in plenty, and, if necessary, will
Use them on an office holder, such a Negro they must kill.

How they clamor for the Philippines and Cubans far away,
While a worse thing is transpiring in this country every day.
In the eyes of such law-breakers lives a beam of greatest size,
That will hinder all the pulling of the mote from others' eyes.

Are the candidates for lynching always found among the men?
No, the fiends of human torture lynch a woman now and then.
Yea, the Spanish Inquisition insignificant will pale,
When compared with such atrocities that in the South prevail!

'Tis a blot on Christian manhood time, itself, cannot erase;
Human blood upon the conscience centuries cannot efface.
Simply to suspect a Negro is sufficient for the band,
He must die without a hearing, in a boasted gospel land.

Sowing antedates the reaping, and the nation should beware,
That the sowers to the wind will reap the whirlwind everywhere.
Hark the cry! the blood of Negroes cries for vengeance from the dust!
How I tremble for the nation when I think that God is just!

(July, 1904)


In the State of 'Old Palmetto,' from the town of Eutawville,
Comes a voice of pain and anguish that refuses to be still.
'Tis a voice that cries for vengeance for the wrongs it has received,
Yea, it asks a nation's conscience, When will justice be achieved?

'Twas a Negro and four white men that a fishing-party made,
In this party all the basis of a tragedy was laid,
One of them began a quarrel with the Negro of the crowd,
Told him not to think of justice, for to him 'twas disallowed.

Then they all began to curse him, in a shameful way to see,
Till the Negro said, 'I'll spank you, if you do not let me be!'
For this threat he was arrested, and for trial was arraigned,
And it goes without the saying, it was by the white man gained.

So Kitt Bookard there was sentenced, for that was the Negro's name,
To a fine of just five dollars, and condemned with all the blame.
When the fine he could not furnish, in the guard-house he was placed,
There in safety for the lynchers, who that night the town disgraced.

With the constable to help them and the marshall of the town,
Went the wicked fishing-party to the guard-house, with a frown;
They procured a bar of iron, gagged and tied Kitt Bookard fast,
And they took him in a buggy to the river, for the last.

'Say your prayers,' the lynchers told him, 'for to Jordan you have come,
Be in haste, for hour of midnight brings you to your final home.'
'If you'll spare me,' said Kitt Bookard, 'I will be your slave for life.'
'Speak no more,' the mob retorted, 'with your blood will end the strife.'

He was clubbed and mutilated, then the fiends put out his eye—
Any mob of heathen darkness would such shameful deeds decry—
Then with weights about his body, in the river he was cast,
Where his blood cried out for vengeance till a week and more had passed.

Bookard's family was anxious to procure him his release,
Through the night his wife was restless, and from worry could not cease.
At the dawn his brother hastened, 'I will pay the fine,' he said,
But he found the guard-house empty and as quiet as the dead.

Quick a search was instituted, all the Negroes,round about,
Volunteered into the service, bound to clear the place of doubt.
In the night a rain had fallen and no stirring round was done,
Save a buggy-track was leading from the guard-house—only one.

Hurriedly the track was followed to the Santee River's brink,
And a dredging was decided when the Negroes came to think.
On the ninth day thus they found him in the silent river's bed,
Weighted with a bar of iron, mutilated, bruised and dead.

When the coroner was summoned and an inquest was begun,
'Twas revealed in all its horrors, how the deed of shame was done,
'Twas a tale of barbarism that the press refused to tell,
How the mob with hellish fury did the work of demons well.

In the mob was found a witness, when the fiends were brought to court,
Who exposed the shocking lynching in a clear and full report,
All the details of the quarrel, and the fine Kitt was to pay,
Of his death in Santee River long before the dawn of day.

Then the jury left the court-room, just for fourteen minutes' time,
And returned to bring the verdict that would free the sons of crime,
'We pronounce the men not guilty,' said the foreman of the crew,—
When the facts are given credance, this was thunder from the blue.

Now that mob unwhipped of justice, poses as the country's best,
Why, it only killed a Negro! let such matters have a rest!
Hark! we hear in half the country, 'Keep the Negro in his place,
Violence we measure to him as a warning to his race.'

To this day the blood of Bookard cries for vengeance, loud and long,
And the wailing reaches heaven, fills the ear that hates the wrong.
So the same can never triumph—punishment for sin is sure,
'Tis God's world, and not the devil's; wrong enthroned is insecure.

While we feel that God is living, we our patience strive to keep,
Still the question comes with power, O, how long will justice sleep?
Those who die the death of Bookard, some sweet day revenge will find.
Nature's God reveals the secret, wrong is punished by its kind.