Enslaved

Claude McKayClaude McKay

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Oh when I think of my long-suffering race,
For weary centuries despised, oppressed,
Enslaved and lynched, denied a human place
In the great life line of the Christian West;
And in the Black Land disinherited,
Robbed in the ancient country of its birth,
My heart grows sick with hate, becomes as lead,
For this my race that has no home on earth.
Then from the dark depths of my soul. I cry
To the avenging angel to consume
The white man's world of wonders utterly:
Let it be swallowed up in earth's vast womb,
Or upward roll as sacrificial smoke
To liberate my people from its yoke!
Claude McKay
About the poet

Claude McKay

1889 - 1948/JamaicanClaude McKay was a Jamaican writer and poet. He was a communist in his early life, but after a visit to the Soviet Union, decided that communism was too disciplined and confining. McKay was involved in the Harlem Renaissance and wrote thre…

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