Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer: Verses about Warning

When Egypt said, 'Exterminate
The males among the Jews,
Fair Goshen's land make desolate
And bid them glad adieus:'

The darkest hour then was brought
Upon their slavery,
But God came down, with Egypt fought,
And made the bondsmen free.

No means of peace within the bout
Could pay the price—'tis plain—
The measure they had meted out
Was measured back again.

For blood of Hebrews had been spilt,
And justice did demand
Egyptian blood to cleanse the guilt—
The firstborn of the land!

America! how canst thou tell
Thy tale of bondage sore?
How blood as rain from Negroes fell,
Till many were no more!

The blood of Negroes cried so loud,
For vengeance from the ground,
Till clouds of sorrow wept and bowed
And heaven's anger frowned.

No peaceful means, 'tis understood,
Could end the dread affray;
For justice cried, 'Slave-owners' blood
In war the debt shall pay!'

The Negroes of the country now
Are held in open scorn,
To other peoples forced to bow,
Though often higher born.

To lynch a Negro is no crime,
The courts of justice say;
And so 'tis done at any time,
A mob may set a day.

The night is darkest near the dawn,
The voice of nature speaks;
The blood that's from the Negroes drawn
A retribution seeks.

'Revenge is mine, I will repay,'
The God of right declares.
The savage mob, with regal sway
A nation's curse prepares.

America! a warning take,
Repent! forsake the wrong!
Thine evil ways at once forsake,
Thy time cannot be long!

The morning star begins to rise,
The darkest night dispels,
Its ray of hope illumes the skies,
And precious dawn foretells.

America! rouse up! awake!
For God is living still,
Who will of wrong a sample make,
When sin has drunk its fill!

When a Negro comes in question you may watch the Southern press,
See how bias its opinions, how his ills are given stress,
Prominence is given headlines, when accused he is of crime,
Emphasizes all the evils of the Negro ev'ry time.

If a white man comes in question you may watch the press again,
How its dignity it loses in a compromise with sin,
Down in some secluded corner you the story may behold,
Where the public may not find it, sadly there the tale is told.

It condemns the sins of Negroes which in white men 'twill excuse,
If a Negro's crime is grievous here's the heading it will use:
'He's a candidate for lynching,' in a type that's bold and plain,
If a heinous crime's committed by a white man, 'he's insane.'

When the Negroes prove their manhood and their homes protection give,
They're pronounced as desperadoes and too desperate to live,
Nothing like its ever published of a white man, though his case
May be ten times more revolting and far deeper the disgrace.

At some public place if Negroes are mistreated by the whites,
When policemen won't arrest them or defend a Negro's rights,
Though the proof is overwhelming and the public ear it gains.
How conspicuous the silence that the Southern press maintains.

When a good is done by Negroes of the same you will not hear,
With their ills the press is busy and the good cannot appear,
Wrong, if found upon a Negro, will be charged up to the race,
But if white, with him 'tis ended, brings his people no disgrace.

See! the Southern press is bowing to a god that's made of gold!
And the populace is crying in a way that's passing bold,
'It must run to suit our fancy or the gold we'll take away!'
So the press can rise no higher than the common people say.

Humbleness will be exalted, exaltation be abased,
To the press it sounds a warning blest humility to taste.
Exaltation in a measure waves its banner over all,
But such pride will bring destruction, haughty spirits bring a fall.

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.
Page 45
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.
Page 46
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 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.