Categories
1860s African American Fable Flowers Short Story

The Mission of the Flowers

The Mission of the Flowers

By Frances E. Watkins
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
Illustration from the cover of How to Grow Roses, thirteenth edition, 1920, published by The Conard & Jones Co.

In a lovely garden filled with fair and blooming flowers stood a beautiful rose tree.[1] It was the centre of attraction and won the admiration of every eye; its beauteous flowers were sought to adorn the bridal wreath and deck the funeral bier. It was a thing of joy and beauty, and its earth mission was a blessing. Kind hands plucked its flowers to gladden the chamber of sickness and adorn the prisoner’s lonely cell. Young girls wore them ’mid their clustering curls, and grave brows relaxed when they gazed upon their wondrous beauty.—Now the rose was very kind and generous hearted, and seeing how much joy she dispensed wished that every flower could only be a rose and like herself have the privilege of giving joy to the children of men; and while she thus mused a bright and lovely spirit approached her and said, “I know thy wishes and will grant thy desires.—Thou shall have power to change every flower in the garden to thine own likeness. When the soft winds come wooing thy fairest buds and flowers, thou shalt breathe gently on thy sister plants, and beneath thy influence they shall change to beautiful roses.” The rose tree bowed her head in silent gratitude to the gentle being who had granted her this wondrous power. All night the stars bent over her from their holy homes above, but she scarcely heeded their vigils. The gentle dews nestled in her arms and kissed the cheeks of her daughters; but she hardly noticed them;—she was waiting for the soft airs to awaken and seek her charming abode. At length the gentle airs greeted her and she hailed them with a joyous welcome, and then commenced her work of change. The first object that met her vision was a tulip superbly arrayed in scarlet and gold. When she was aware of the intention

Ellen T. Fisher. Tulips. Color Chromolithograph, ca. 1861-1897, Boston Public Library. Public Domain.

of her neighbor her cheeks flamed with anger, her eyes flashed indignantly, and she haughtily refused to change her proud robes for the garb the rose tree had prepared for her, but she could not resist the spell that was upon her. And she passively permitted the garments of the rose to enfold her yielding limbs.—The verbenas saw the change that had fallen upon the tulip, and dreading that a similar fate awaited them crept closely to the ground, and while tears gathered in their eyes, they felt a change pass through their sensitive frames, and instead of gentle verbenas they were blushing roses. She breathed upon the sleepy poppies; a deeper slumber fell upon their senses, and when they awoke, they too had changed to bright and beautiful roses. The heliotrope read her fate in the lot of her sisters, and bowing her fair head in silent sorrow, gracefully submitted to her unwelcome destiny. The violets, whose mission was to herald the approach, were averse to losing their individuality. Surely, said they, we have a mission as well as the rose;

Ellen T. Fisher. Poppies No. 3. Color Chromolithograph, c. 1886, Boston Public Library. Public Domain

but with heavy hearts they saw themselves changed like their sister plants. The snow drop drew around her her robes of virgin white; she would not willingly exchange them for the most brilliant attire that ever decked a flower’s form; to her they were the emblems of purity and innocence; but the rose tree breathed upon her, and with a bitter sob she reluctantly consented to the change. The dahlias lifted their heads proudly and defiantly; they dreaded the change but scorned submission; they loved the fading year, and wished to spread around his dying couch their brightest, fairest flowers; but vainly they struggled, the doom was upon them, and they could not escape. A modest lily that grew near the rose tree shrank instinctively from her; but it was in vain, and with tearful eyes and trembling lips she yielded, while a quiver of agony convulsed her frame. The marygolds sighed submissively and made no remonstrance. The garden pinks grew careless and submitted without a murmur; while other flowers less fragrant or less

Auguste Schmidt. Floral Arrangement with Violets. Color chromolithograph, ca. 1861-1897, Boston Public Library. Public Domain.

fair paled with sorrow or reddened with anger, but the spell of the rose tree was upon them and every flower was changed by her power, and that once beautiful garden was overrun with roses; it had become a perfect wilderness of roses; the garden had changed, but that variety which had lent it so much beauty was gone, and men grew tired of the roses, for they were everywhere. The smallest violet peeping faintly from its bed would have been welcome, the humblest primrose would have been hailed with delight;—even a dandelion would have been a harbinger of joy, and when the rose saw that the children of men were dissatisfied with the change

Ellen T. Fisher. Marigolds. Color chromolithograph, ca. 1861-1897, Boston Public Library. Public Domain.

she had made, her heart grew sad within her, and she wished the power had never been given her to change her sister plants to roses, and tears come into her eyes as she mused, when suddenly a rough wind shook her drooping form and she opened her eyes and found that she had only been dreaming. But an important lessons had been taught; she had learned to respect the individuality of her sister flowers and began to see that they, as well as herself, had their own missions,—some to gladden the eye with their loveliness and thrill the soul with delight; some to transmit fragrance to the air; others to breathe a refining influence upon the world; some had power to lull the aching brow and soothe the weary heart and brain into forgetfulness, and of those whose mission she did not understand she wisely concluded there must be some object in their creation, and resolved to be true to her own earth mission and lay her fairest buds and flowers upon the altars of love and truth.

WATKINS, FRANCES E. “THE MISSION OF THE FLOWERS.” REPOSITORY OF RELIGION AND LITERATURE, AND OF SCIENCE AND ART’S VOL. III, NO. 1 (JANUARY 1860): 26-8.

[1] A Tree Rose or Rose Standard is not a rose variety, but the result of grafting a regular rose plant onto a trunk to achieve the appearance of a tree.

Verbena (Verbena chamaedrifolia), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes. Commercial color lithograph, 1890, printed by George S. Harris & Sons, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Heliotrope (Heliotropium Peruvianum), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes. Commercial color lithograph, 1890, printed by George S. Harris & Sons, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Snowdrop (Galanthus Nivalis), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes. Commercial color lithograph, 1890, printed by George S. Harris & Sons, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain.
Lily of the Valley (Convallaria Majalis), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes. Commercial color lithograph, 1890, printed by George S. Harris & Sons, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Dahlia (Dahlia Coccinea), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes. Commercial color lithograph, 1890, printed by George S. Harris & Sons, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain.
Pinks (Dianthus Caryophyllus), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes. Commercial color lithograph, 1890, printed by George S. Harris & Sons, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Primrose (Primula Vulgaris), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes. Commercial color lithograph, 1890, printed by George S. Harris & Sons, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Contexts

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911) was an African American public speaker, poet, teacher, and social activist. As a public intellectual, she advocated for antislavery, education, and temperance. Her short story “The Two Offers,” which appeared in 1859 in consecutive issues of The Anglo-African Magazine, is the first short story published by an African American writer in the United States.

The Repository of Religion and Literature, and of Science and Arts was a short-lived (1858-63) quarterly for Black children published by a group of African Methodist Episcopal (AME) societies.

Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:

emblem: A picture of an object (or the object itself) serving as a symbolical representation of an abstract quality, an action, state of things, class of persons, etc.

beauteous: Highly pleasing to the senses, esp. the sight; beautiful; (also, in recent use) sensuously alluring, voluptuous. Chiefly literary.

bier: The movable stand on which a corpse, whether in a coffin or not, is placed before burial; that on which it is carried to the grave.

vigil: An occasion or period of keeping awake for some special reason or purpose; a watch kept during the natural time for sleep.

Resources for Further Study
  • Tabitha Lowery’s scholarly essay “‘Thank God for Little Children’: The Reception History of Frances E. W. Harper’s Children’s Poetry,” included in volume 67, number 2, of ESQ: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture (2021).
  • The house where Frances Ellen Watkins Harper lived in Philadelphia, PA, from 1870 until 1911 is a National Historic Landmark.
  • Ian Zack’s article “Overlooked No More: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Poet and Suffragist,” appeared on February 7th, 2023 in The New York Times.
Contemporary Connections

How to Increase Biodiversity in Your Backyard and Garden,” from the Dogwood Alliance’s website.

Categories
1900s African American Authorship Decade Ocean Poem Song

Sea Lyric

Sea Lyric

By William Stanley Braithwaite
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
Artist Unknown. Portrait of a Black Sailor (Paul Cuffe?). Oil on canvas, c. 1880, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Public Domain.
Over the seas to-night, love,
  Over the darksome deeps,
Over the seas to-night, love,
  Slowly my vessel creeps.

Over the seas to-night, love,
  Walking the sleeping foam—
Sailing away from thee, love,
  Sailing from thee and home.

Over the seas to-night, love,
  Dreaming beneath the spars—
Till in my dreams you shine, love,
Bright as the listening stars.
       
Braithwaite, william stanley. “Sea Lyric,” IN THE UPWARD PATH: A READER FOR COLORED CHILDREN, ED. MYRON T. PRITCHARD AND MARY WHITE OVINGTON, 189. HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, 1920.

Contexts

This poem appeared in The Upward Path: A Reader for Colored Children, published in 1920 and compiled by Myron T. Pritchard and Mary White Ovington. The volume’s foreword states that, “[t]o the present time, there has been no collection of stories and poems by Negro writers, which colored children could read with interest and pleasure and in which they could find a mirror of the traditions and aspirations of their race.”

“Sea Lyric” was initially included in Braithwaite’s 1904 poetry book Lyrics of Life and Love, wherein the poem was not segmented into stanzas.

Categories
1910s African American Fable Folktale Short Story Wild animals

The Hare and the Tortoise

The Hare and the Tortoise

By Anonymous
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
John T. Bowen. Texian Hare. Hand-colored lithograph on wove paper, 1848, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert D. Jameson. Public domain.

(Original byline: A Negro fairy Folk-Tale From Uganda. Selected by M. N. Work.)[1]

The hare and the tortoise were great friends. One day they decided to search for food. They went to an ant hill and dug a hole in it so as to trap the ants. The next day, as the time drew near for them to visit the hole, the hare said, “Why should an old fool like the tortoise share this feast with me? I can easily outwit him.” So he told his friends to wait in a quiet place for the tortoise and when he came by to seize him and carry him into the tall grass through which he would have great difficulty in pushing his way. His friends did as he requested. They waited and as the tortoise came by they caught him and carried him into the tall grass. In the meantime the hare ate all the ants he wanted and scampered off home.

The tortoise, after a long struggle, managed to get out of the grass. Tired and vexed he made his way to the ant hill, but found no food. He saw there, however, the footprints of the hare, and as it flashed upon him that he had been outwitted, he became angry and said, “Never mind, my cunning friend, I will get even with you for this.”

When he reached home the hare rushed out to meet him and said. “How thankful I am to see you safe. I feared you were killed. I only escaped myself by the merest chance. Three spears just missed me. We must never go back to that ant hill.”

“Have no fear”, said the tortoise. “Our enemies are not likely to come to the same spot again. It will be quite safe for us to go there another day.”

The tortoise, knowing that the selfish hare would sneak off alone to feast on the ants, arranged with his friends to catch the hare when he was busy eating. “Wait for him”, said the tortoise, “and when he has his head deep in the hole pounce upon him, but,” he added, “do not kill him.”

“Oh” said the friends, “we like hare’s meat; we want to eat him.”

“Very well”, said the tortoise, “but if you kill him quickly he will be tough. You must take him home, then make a pot ready half filled with fine oil and salt. Put the hare in the pot leaving a hole in the cover so that you may add cold water from time to time, for if you let the oil get hot you will completely spoil the hare. Be very careful, therefore, not to let it boil.”

The friends did exactly as they were told. They trapped the hare and carried him home. Then they put him in a pot with the best of oil, the proper amount of salt and placed the pot on the fire. Water was added occasionally through the hole made in the cover. After some hours, when all was thought to be ready, the friends, having washed their hands and nicely laid out the dishes, seated themselves expectantly. The pot was placed in their midst and the cover was withdrawn when hoy! presto! out jumped the hare, and to their horror, ran away. As he rushed into his house he found his comrade waiting.

“Dear me” said the tortoise, “Where have you been?”

“Alas! said the hare, “I have been in great danger. I nearly lost my life. I’ve been caught and cooked. It was only by a miracle that I escaped.”

As he said this he began to lick himself. The tortoise, noticing that a look of pleasure rapidly succeeded that of fright, went across to him and also began to lick.

“How delicious”, said he.

“Get away”, said the greedy hare. “You have not been in the pot or through all the trials I’ve been through. Keep off.”

The tortoise, feeling that his cunning had supplied the oil and salt, began to get angry.

“Let me have your shoulder and left side to lick?”

“I will not”, said the hare, more and more enjoying himself.

The tortoise, in great fury, left the house. He had not gone far before he met his angry friends coming to meet him

“What do you mean”? they asked.

“Through your advice we have lost not only the hare, but also our fine oil and salt. When we uncovered the pot the hare jumped out and ran off with the oil and salt all clinging to him.”

The tortoise, in his rage, lost every feeling of friendship for the hare and said, “I will tell you what to do. You arrange a dance and invite the hare and when he is dancing to your tom-tom seize him and this time kill him.”

The dance was arranged. The hare was invited and came. While he was dancing the friends suddenly seized him. To make sure that he would not escape this time they killed him, skinned him and cut him up.

Thus the hare, and because for once, was outwitted of his greediness, miserably perished.

John Anderson (Scottish naturalist). Burmese Roofed Turtle. Hand-painted illustration, 1873, University of St Andrews, Scotland. Public domain.
 “THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE.” THE CRISIS’ VOL. 12, NO. 6 (OCTOBER 1916): 271-72.

[1] In October of 1912, The Crisis published a nearly identical version of this short story: “Mr. Hare: A Story for Children.” The ending of the current version, selected by Monroe Nathan Work and published four years later in the same magazine, during World War I, is significantly less coddling than that of the 1912 version. While the 1916 hare dies, the one from 1912 survives the tortoise’s revenge. 

Contexts

Starting in 1912, the October issues of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, were dedicated to children. A typical edition of these children’s numbers would contain a special editorial piece and two or three literary works specifically for children, while still including the serious pieces about contemporary issues with a focus on race that The Crisis was known for. These October numbers were sprinkled with children’s photographs sent in by the readers.

In his first editorial for the Children’s number in 1912, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that “there is a sense in which all numbers and all words of a magazine of ideas myst point to the child—to that vast immortality and wide sweep and infinite possibility which the child represents.”

The success of The Crisis’ children’s number led to the standalone The Brownies’ Book, a monthly magazine for African American children that circulated from January 1920 to December 1921 under the editorship of Du Bois, Augustus Granville Dill, and Jessie Fauset.

Categories
1910s African American Fable Folktale Myth

How the Spider Won and Lost Nzambi’s Daughter

How the Spider Won and Lost Nzambi’s Daughter

By Anonymous
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
Ward, Herbert. A Bakongo Girl. Bronze sculpture, 1901, Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History.

Nzambi, the goddess who dwelt upon earth, had a beautiful daughter. Nzambi vowed that no earthly being should marry her daughter un­less he first brought the heavenly fire from Nzambi Mpungu, who dwelt in the heavens above the blue roof.[1] Now, the daughter was very beautiful and the people marveled saying, “How shall we secure this treasure, and who on such conditions will ever marry her?”

Then the spider said, “I will win Nzambi’s daughter if you will help me.” And they all answered, “We will gladly help you if you will reward us.” The spider than began to travel upward until he reached the blue roof of heaven. He then dropped down again to the earth, leaving a strong silken thread firmly hanging from the roof to the earth below. He now called the tortoise, the woodpecker, the rat and the sand-fly and bade them climb up the thread to the roof.[2] They did so. Then the wood­ pecker pecked a hole through the blue roof and they all entered the realm of Nzambi Mpungu, the god of the heavens.

Nzambi Mpungu received them court­eously and asked them what they want­ed. They answered him saying, “Oh, Nzambi Mpungu, of the heavens above, great father of all the world, we have come to fetch some of your terrible fire for Nzambi, who rules upon earth.”

“Wait here, then,” said Mpungu, “while I go to my people and tell them of the message you bring.”

But the sand-fly, unseen, accompanied Mpungu and heard all that he said. The Mpungu returned to the visitors and said, “My friends, how can I know that you have really come from the ruler of the earth and that you are not imposters?”

“Put us to some test,” they said, “that we may prove our sincerity to you.”

“I will,” said Mpungu. “Go down to your earth and bring me a bundle of bamboos that I may make myself a shed.”

And the tortoise went down and soon returned with the bamboos.

Then Mpungu said to the rat, “Get thee beneath this bundle of bamboos and I will set fire to it; then if you escape, I shall surely know that Nzambi sent you.”

The rat did as he was bidden. Mpun­gu set fire to the bamboos, and lo, when they were entirely consumed, the rat came forth from amidst the ashes un­harmed.

“You are, indeed,” said Mpungu, “what you represent yourselves to be. I will go and consult my people again.”

The sand-fly was again sent after Mpungu and bidden to keep well out of sight, to hear all that was said, and, if possible, to find out where the fire, that is the lightning, was kept. He soon came back and related all that he had heard and seen.

Then Mpungu returned to them and said, “Yes, I will give you the fire you ask for if you will tell me where it is kept.”

And the spider said, “Give me then, O, Nzambi Mpungu, one of the five cases that you keep in the fowl house.”

“Truly,” said Mpungu. “You have answered me correctly, O spider. Take therefore, this case and give it to Nzambi, who rules upon earth.”

The tortoise carried it down to the earth and the spider presented the fire from heaven to Nzambi and Nzambi gave the spider her beautiful daughter in marriage.

But the woodpecker grumbled and said, “Surely the woman is mine, for it was I who pecked the hole through the blue roof, without which the others could never have entered the kingdom of Nzambi Mpungu.”

“Yes,” said the rat, “but see how I risked my life among the burning bamboos. The girl, I think, should be mine.”

“Nay, O, Nzambi,” said the sand-fly, “the girl should certainly be mine, for without my help the others would never have found out where the fire was kept.”

Then Nzambi said, “Nay, the spider undertook to bring me the fire and has brought it. The girl by right is his, but as you will make her life miserable if I allow her to live with the spider and as I cannot give her to all of you, I will give her to none, but instead I will give each of you her market value.”

Nzambi then paid each of them fifty bolts of cloth and a cask of gin, but the daughter ever after remained unmarried and waited on her mother.

 “HOW THE SPIDER WON AND LOST NZAMBI’S DAUGHTER.” THE CRISIS’ VOL. 10, NO. 6 (OCTOBER 1915): 301-02.

[1] This story sems to come directly from Kongo mythology. The Kingdom of Kongo was a large kingdom in western central Africa. In Kongo lore, Nzambi Mpungu is the father god who lives in the heavens and protects the secret of fire. Upon creating the earth, Nzambi Mpungu sends Nzambi there, who becomes princess of the earth. Eventually, Nzambi Mpungo comes down to earth and marries Nzambi, his own creation.

[2] Sand flies are small golden, brownish, or gray flies. The females feed on blood. These insects transmit several diseases like the pappataci fever virus, kala azar, Oriental sore, espundia, and bartonellosis.

Contexts

Starting in 1912, the October issues of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, were dedicated to children. A typical edition of these children’s numbers would contain a special editorial piece and two or three literary works specifically for children, while still including the serious pieces about contemporary issues with a focus on race that The Crisis was known for. These October numbers were sprinkled with children’s photographs sent in by the readers.

In his first editorial for the Children’s number in 1912, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that “there is a sense in which all numbers and all words of a magazine of ideas myst point to the child—to that vast immortality and wide sweep and infinite possibility which the child represents.”

The success of The Crisis’ children’s number led to the standalone The Brownies’ Book, a monthly magazine for African American children that circulated from January 1920 to December 1921 under the editorship of Du Bois, Augustus Granville Dill, and Jessie Fauset.

Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:

bolt: A roll of woven fabric: generally of a definite length; being, in various cases, 30 yards, 28 ells, or 40 feet.

Resources for Further Study
  • Under the title “How the Spider Won and Lost Nzambi’s Daughter,” the editors from The Crisis added the following text: “A Negro Folk Tale After Dennet; from the collection by M. N. Work.”
    Dennet refers to Richard Edward Dennett (1857-1921), a Chilean-born English trader who later in his life wrote influential sociological and anthropological research on West African cultures. His book Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort (1898) contains more than 30 traditional stories from the French Congo.
    M.N. (Monroe Nathan) Work (1866-1945) was an African-American sociologist who founded the Department of Records and Research at the Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute.
  • Bayeck, Rebecca. “Unsung History of the Kingdom of Kongo.”

Categories
1910s African American Fairies Fairy Tale Myth Short Story

The Black Fairy

The Black Fairy

By Fenton Johnson
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
Robert Henri. Eva Green. Oil on canvas, 1907, Wichita Art Museum, Roland O. Murdock Collection. Public Domain.

Little Annabelle was lying on the lawn, a volume of Grimm before her. Annabelle was nine years of age, the daughter of a colored lawyer, and the prettiest dark child in the village.[1] She had long played in the fairyland of knowledge, and was far advanced for one of her years. A vivid imagination was her chief endowment, and her story creatures often became real flesh-and-blood creatures.

“I wonder,” she said to herself that afternoon, “if there is any such thing as a colored fairy? Surely there must be, but in this book they’re all white.”

Closing the book, her eyes rested upon the landscape that rolled itself out lazily before her. The stalks in the cornfield bent and swayed, their tassels bowing to the breeze, until Annabelle could have easily sworn that those were Indian fairies. And beyond lay the woods, dark and mossy and cool, and there many a something mysterious could have sprung into being, for in the recess was a silvery pool where the children played barefooted. A summer mist like a thin veil hung over the scene, and the breeze whispered tales of far-away lands.

Hist! Something stirred in the hazel bush near her. Can I describe little Annabelle’s amazement at finding in the bush a palace and a tall and dark-faced fairy before it?

“I am Amunophis, the Lily of Ethiopia,” said the strange creature. “And I come to the children of the Seventh Veil.”[2]

She was black and regal, and her voice was soft and low and gentle like the Niger on a summer evening.[3] Her dress was the wing of the sacred beetle, and whenever the wind stirred it played the dreamiest of music.[4] Her feet were bound with golden sandals, and on her head was a crown of lotus leaves.

“And you’re a fairy?” gasped Annabelle.

“Yes, I am a fairy, just as you wished me to be. I live in the tall grass many, many miles away, where a beautiful river called the Niger sleeps.” And stretching herself beside Annabelle, on the lawn, the fairy began to whisper:

“I have lived there for over five thousand years. In the long ago a city rested there, and from that spot black men and women ruled the world. Great ships laden with spice and oil and wheat would come to its port, and would leave with wines and weapons of war and fine linens. Proud and great were the black kings of this land, their palaces were built of gold, and I was the Guardian of the City. But one night when I was visiting an Indian grove the barbarians from the North came down and destroyed our shrines and palaces and took our people up to Egypt. Oh, it was desolate, and I shed many tears, for I missed the busy hum of the market and the merry voices of the children.

“But come with me, little Annabelle, I will show you all this, the rich past of the Ethiopian.”

She bade the little girl take hold of her hand and close her eyes, and wish herself in the wood behind the cornfield. Annabelle obeyed, and ere they knew it they were sitting beside the clear water in the pond.

“You should see the Niger,” said the fairy. “It is still beautiful, but not as happy as in the old days. The white man’s foot has been cooled by its water, and the white man’s blossom is choking out the native flower.” And she dropped a tear so beautiful the costliest pearl would seem worthless beside it.

“Ah! I did not come to weep,” she continued, “but to show you the past.”

So in a voice sweet and sad she sang an old African lullaby and dropped into the water a lotus leaf.[5] A strange mist formed, and when it had disappeared she bade the little girl to look into the pool. Creeping up Annabelle peered into the glassy surface, and beheld a series of vividly colored pictures.

Brass Plaque: King Esigie Shielded by Attendants. Brass, 1500/1599 [made in Benin City], The British Museum. Public Domain.

First she saw dark blacksmiths hammering in the primeval forests and giving fire and iron to all the world. Then she saw the gold of old Ghana and the bronzes of Benin.[6][7] Then the black Ethiopians poured down upon Egypt and the lands and cities bowed and flamed. Next she saw a great city with pyramids and stately temples. It was night, and a crimson moon was in the sky.[8] Red wine was flowing freely, and beautiful dusky maidens were dancing in a grove of palms. Old and young were intoxicated with the joy of living, and a sense of superiority could be easily traced in their faces and attitude. Presently red flame hissed everywhere, and the magnificence of remote ages soon crumbled into ash and dust. Persian soldiers ran to and fro conquering the band of defenders and severing the woman and children. Then came the Mohammedans and kingdom on kingdom arose, and with the splendor came ever more slavery.[9]

The next picture was that of a group of fugitive slaves, forming the nucleus of three tribes, hurrying back to the wilderness of their fathers.

In houses built as protection against the heat the blacks dwelt, communing with the beauty of water and sky and open air. It was just between twilight and evening and their minstrels were chanting impromptu hymns to their gods of nature. And as she listened closely, Annabelle thought she caught traces of the sorrow songs in the weird pathetic strains of the African music mongers.[10] From the East the warriors of the tribe came, bringing prisoners, whom they sold to white strangers from the West.

“It is the beginning,” whispered the fairy, as a large Dutch vessel sailed westward.[11] Twenty boys and girls bound with strong ropes were given to a miserable existence in the hatchway of the boat. Their captors were strange creatures, pale and yellow haired, who were destined to sell them as slaves in a country cold and wild, where the palm trees and the cocoanut never grew and men spoke a language without music. A light, airy creature, like an ancient goddess, few before the craft guiding it in its course.

Stowage of the British Slave Ship “Brookes” Under the Regulated Slave Trade Act of 1788. Etching, Library of Congress rare Book and Special Collections Division. Public Domain.

“That is I,” said the fairy. “In that picture I am bringing your ancestors to America. It was my hope that in the new civilization I could build a race that would be strong enough to redeem their brothers. They have gone through great tribulations and trials, and have mingled with the blood of the fairer race; yet though not entirely Ethiopian they have not lost their identity. Prejudice is a furnace through which molten gold is poured. Heaven be merciful unto all races! There is one more picture –the greatest of all, but –farewell, little one, I am going.”

“Going?” cried Annabelle. “Going? I want to see the last picture—and when will you return, fairy?”

“When the race has been redeemed. When the brotherhood of man has come into the world; and there is no longer a white civilization or a black civilization, but the civilization of all men. I belong to the world council of the fairies, and we are all colors and kinds. Why should not men be as charitable unto one another? When that glorious time comes I shall walk among you and be one of you, performing my deeds of magic and playing with the children of every nation, race and tribe. Then, Annabelle, you shall see the last picture—and the best.”

Slowly she disappeared like a summer mist, leaving Annabelle amazed.

Malmström, August. Dancing Fairies. Oil on canvas, 1866, Nationalmuseum, Sweden. Public Domain.
JOHNSON, FENTON. “THE BLACK FAIRY,” THE CRISIS 6, NO. 6 (OCTOBER 1913): 292-94.

[1] The establishment of black colleges and graduate schools during the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877) allowed the emergence of a new class of black professionals. The Howard School of Law, established on January 4, 1869, was the first black law school in America. Macon Bolling Allen (1816-1894), however, is believed to be the first African American licensed lawyer. He received his certification on July 3, 1844.

[2] The following excerpt from W. E. B. Dubois’s 1903 landmark The Souls of Black Folk, in which he partially outlines the influential concept of double-consciousness, may contextualize Fenton Johnson’s allusion to the Seventh Veil:

“After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,”a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself thought the revelation of the other world.”

[3] With a length of 2,600 miles, the Niger River is the main river of Western Africa and the third longest African river after the Nile and the Congo.

Sun God Depicted as a Scarab with Human Head and Arms. Limestone, 25th Dynasty (Ethiopians), Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany. Public Domain.

[4] The sacred beetle refers to the Egyptian scarab, a dung beetle that for the ancient Egyptians symbolized renewal and rebirth. This beetle was also associated with Khepri, a divine manifestation of the early morning sun.

[5] Tigit Shibabaw‘s interpretation of Eshururu, an Ethiopian lullaby in Ahmaric, an Ethiopian Semitic language. “Eshururu” means “hush little baby don’t you cry.”

[6] As of today, Ghana remains a leading producer of gold in Ghana and is the seventh gold producer in the world. Unregulated small-scale gold mining in this country are a current environmental concern due to its devastating effect on the landscape.

[7] The “Benin Bronzes” are brass-and-bronze sculptures whose creation dates back to the 16th century. In 1897, British soldiers looted hundreds of these objects from the Benin Royal Palace after a military expedition that effectively ended the independent Kingdom of Benin. The same year, the British Museum displayed a set of “Benin Bronzes” that together with later acquisitions from private collections still remains in the museum’s collection. In October 2021, the British Museum received a request from Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Information and Culture for the return of Nigerian antiquities. Representatives from the Benin Royal Palace have also asked publicly for the restitution of these looted art objects.

[8] “Crimson moon” and “blood moon” are non-scientific terms for a total lunar eclipse, during which the moon takes on a reddish color.

[9] Mohamedans are followers of Muhammad, the Islamic prophet. In the XVI century, Islamic forces led by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi invaded Ethiopia.

[10] Sorrow Songs (or spirituals) belong to the musical tradition of black slaves during the antebellum South.

[11] Between 1596 and 1839, the Dutch, active participants in the transatlantic slave trades, transported half a million Africans westward across the Atlantic.

Contexts

Starting in 1912, the October issues of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, were dedicated to children. A typical edition of these children’s numbers would contain a special editorial piece and two or three literary works specifically for children, while still including the serious pieces about contemporary issues with a focus on race that The Crisis was known for. These October numbers were sprinkled with children’s photographs sent in by the readers.

In his first editorial for the Children’s number in 1912, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that “there is a sense in which all numbers and all words of a magazine of ideas myst point to the child—to that vast immortality and wide sweep and infinite possibility which the child represents.”

The success of The Crisis’ children’s number led to the standalone The Brownies’ Book, a monthly magazine for African American children that circulated from January 1920 to December 1921 under the editorship of Du Bois, Augustus Granville Dill, and Jessie Fauset.

Fenton’s Johnson’s “The Black Fairy” also appeared in The Upward Path: A Reader for Colored Children in 1920.

Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:

crimson: Of a deep red colour somewhat inclining towards purple.

hist: Used to enjoin silence, attract attention, or call on a person to listen.

Resources for Further Study
  • Ethiopianism, a literary-religious tradition that emerged during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, emphasized the classical values of African nations and their extensive histories before European colonization. In the United States, Ethiopianism “found expression in slave narratives, exhortations of slave preachers, and songs and folklore of southern black culture, as well as the sermons and political tracts of the urban elite.”
  • A brief history of fairies, courtesy of the World History Encyclopedia collective.
  • An article on fairies‘ folklore scholarship, with copious references and suggestions for further reading.
  • Kory, Fern. “Once upon a Time in Aframerica: The ‘Peculiar’ Significance of Fairies in the Brownies’ Book.” Children’s Literature, vol. 29, 2001, p. 91-112.
Contemporary Connections

Did you know that June 24th is International Fairy Day?

Louis Armstrong’s interpretation of “Go Down Moses,” an emblematic Sorrow Song.

Categories
1920s African American Poem

The Bronze Legacy (To A Brown Boy)

The Bronze Legacy (To A Brown Boy)

By Effie Lee Newsome
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
Augusta Savage. Gamin. Painted plaster, c. 1929, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Benjamin and Olya Margolin. Public Domain.
‘Tis a noble gift to be brown, all brown, 
    Like the strongest things that make
    up this earth,
Like the mountains grave and grand,
    Even like the very land,
    Even like the trunks of trees— 
    Even oaks, to be like these!
God builds His strength in bronze.

To be brown like thrush and lark![1][2] 
    Like the subtle wren so dark!
Nay, the king of beasts wears brown;[3] 
    Eagles are of this same hue.
I thank God, then, I am brown. 
    Brown has mighty things to do.
NEWSOME, EFFIE LEE. “THE BRONZE LEGACY (TO A BROWN BOY).” THE CRISIS 24, NO. 6 (OCTOBER 1922): 265.
Wood Thrush, from the Birds of America Series (N4) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes Brands. Commercial color lithograph, 1888, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain.

[1] The thrushes are a large passerine bird family, also known as perching birds or songbirds. Although some of the thrushes that occur in North America are brown, like the wood thrush pictured above, they vary in color and include species like the American robin and the eastern bluebird!

[2] The larks are a large family of songbirds whose species occur mainly in Africa. According to the OED, however, the name, when used without specification, usually refers to the Eurasian skylark, a brown songbird celebrated by poets and naturalists alike. The horned lark is the only lark that is native to North America. During the early twentieth-century, English settlers tried to introduce the Eurasian skylark to the region with little success, although a small population of these famous songbirds persists in southern Vancouver Island.

[3] The king of beasts, i.e., the lion.

Contexts

Starting in 1912, the October issues of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, were dedicated to children. A typical edition of these children’s numbers would contain a special editorial piece and two or three literary works specifically for children, while still including the serious pieces about contemporary issues with a focus on race that The Crisis was known for. These October numbers were sprinkled with children’s photographs sent in by the readers.

In his first editorial for the Children’s number in 1912, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that “there is a sense in which all numbers and all words of a magazine of ideas myst point to the child—to that vast immortality and wide sweep and infinite possibility which the child represents.”

The success of The Crisis’ children’s number led to the standalone The Brownies’ Book, a monthly magazine for African American children that circulated from January 1920 to December 1921 under the editorship of Du Bois, Augustus Granville Dill, and Jessie Fauset.

Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:

  • thrush: A name of two British and general European birds.
Resources for Further Study
  • In October 1922, W. E. B. Du Bois sent a typed copy of “The Bronze Legacy (To a Brown Boy),” to Margaret S. Thompson, a subscriber to The Crisis who had apparently inquired about the poem. Both the printed copy and Du Bois’s accompanying letter at available online, courtesy of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives.
  • Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, champion of multicultural children’s literature, makes a case for reading Effie Lee Newsome today.
Contemporary Connections

In her book Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights, Robin Bernstein illustrates how the American idea of childhood innocence became racialized and excluded black children. A poem like Newsome’s “The Bronze Legacy” pushes in the opposite direction while encouraging racial pride.

Categories
1910s African American Poem Seasons Trees

Hope

Hope

Mary Betsy Totten. Rising Sun. Quilt, 1825-1835, National Museum of American History. Gift of Mrs. Marvel Mildred Matthes. Public domain.
By Georgia Douglas Johnson
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
Frail children of sorrow, dethroned by a hue,
The shadows are flecked by the rose sifting through,
The world has its motion, all things pass away,
No night is omnipotent, there must be day,

The oak tarries long in the depth of the seed,[1]
But swift is the season of nettle and weed.
Abide yet awhile in the mellowing shade
And rise with the hour for which you were made.

The cycle of seasons, the tidals of man,
Revolve in the coil of an infinite plan,
We move to the rhythm of ages long done,
And each has an hour--to dwell in the sun!
JOHNSON, GEORGIA DOUGLAS. “HOPE.” THE CRISIS’ 14, NO. 6 (OCTOBER 1917): 293.

[1] Oak acorns exhibit dormancy, which means they germinate slowly or not at all after they drop from the tree. These seeds can remain inactive on the ground from August or September of any given year until the next spring.

Contexts

Starting in 1912, the October issues of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, were dedicated to children. A typical edition of these children’s numbers would contain a special editorial piece and two or three literary works specifically for children, while still including the serious pieces about contemporary issues with a focus on race that The Crisis was known for. These October numbers were sprinkled with children’s photographs sent in by the readers.

In his first editorial for the Children’s number in 1912, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that “there is a sense in which all numbers and all words of a magazine of ideas myst point to the child—to that vast immortality and wide sweep and infinite possibility which the child represents.”

The success of The Crisis’ children’s number led to the standalone The Brownies’ Book, a monthly magazine for African American children that circulated from January 1920 to December 1921 under the editorship of Du Bois, Augustus Granville Dill, and Jessie Fauset.

Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:

flecked: Of darkness: Dappled with bright spots. Of the sky: Dappled with clouds. Of clouds: Cast like flecks over the sky.

nettle: Any of various plants with inconspicuous green flowers and (usually) stinging hairs that constitute the genus Urtica (family Urticaceae); esp. the Eurasian plant U. dioica, which has strongly toothed ovate leaves and is an abundant weed of damp waste ground, roadsides, etc. (also called (common) stinging nettle). Also (usually with distinguishing word): any of various plants of other genera and families with stinging hairs.

omnipotent: All-powerful, having absolute power. Also: having unlimited or great authority, force, or influence; extremely strong.

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

In her 2017 poetry book One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance, poet Nikki Grimes uses Georgia Douglas Johnson’s “Hope” to create a golden shovel poem titled “On Bully Patrol.” Golden shovel poetry is a poetic form created by Terrance Hayes in 2010 that uses each word of an existing poem as the last word of the successive lines of a new poem.

Categories
1940s African American Life and Death Poem

The Golden Garden Spider

The Golden Garden Spider

By Effie Lee Newsome
Annotations by Karen Kilcup
Original 1940 woodcut for “The Golden Garden Spider,”
by Lois Mailou Jones. Public Domain.
The golden garden spider[1]
Has grasshoppers for lunch—
At least they hang beside her—
I’ve never seen her munch.
And yet they swing there every day,
And always in a different way.

Sometimes I glance at her at dawn,
But seldom find her food all gone.
It isn’t hard to tell you why—
She traps grasshoppers passing by,
The wraps them in her web all day.
When their long legs get caught they stay,
And kicking can’t do any good—
Somehow, sometimes—I wish it would.
Newsome, Effie Lee. “The Golden Garden Spider.” Gladiola Garden: Poems of Outdoors and Indoors for Second Grade Readers. Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1940, 13.

[1] Probably the Yellow Garden Spider, Argiope aurantia, which spins a circular web.

Contexts

Newsome worked among the many celebrated writers of the Harlem Renaissance, who included Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, and Anne Spencer, many of them poets. Among her noteworthy contributions to that movement was her writing and editing for W. E. B. Du Bois’s magazine, The Crisis, the official publication of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). As John Claborn points out, Du Bois’s political goals embraced the idea of access to natural spaces, and the magazine featured environmental writing by such notable authors as Arna Bontemps, Claude McKay, and Hughes. Newsome contributed to and edited “The Little Page” (“Whimsies for the Younger Folk”), where much of her work emphasized nature. This poem, like many others in The Envious Lobster, whimsically enacts a natural history lesson, while it encourages children’s imagination.

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

Anonymous. Reading of Newsome’s poem, “The Bronze Legacy.” The illustrations for Gladiola Garden were done by prominent Black artist Loïs Mailou Jones (1905-1998).

Johnston, Amber O’Neal. “African American Poetry: Effie Lee Newsome. Heritage Mom blog.

Categories
1920s African American Poem Song Stars, Moon, Sky

Song for a Banjo Dance

Song for a Banjo Dance

By Langston Hughes
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
Henry Ossawa Tanner. The Banjo Lesson. Oil on canvas, 1893, Hampton University Museum, VA. Public Domain.
Shake your brown feet, honey,
Shake your brown feet, chil',
Shake your brown feet, honey,
Shake 'em swift and wil'—
    Get way back, honey,
    Do that low-down step.
    Get on over, darling,
          Now! Step out
          With your left.
Shake your brown feet, honey,
Shake 'em, honey chil'.

Sun's going down this evening—
Might never rise no mo'.
The sun's going down this very night—
Might never rise no mo'—
So dance with swift feet, honey,
    (The banjo's sobbing low),[1]
Dance with swift feet, honey—
Might never dance no mo'.

Shake your brown feet, Liza,
Shake 'em, Liza, chil',
Shake your brown feet, Liza,
    (The music's soft and wil').
Shake your brown feet, Liza,
    (The banjo's sobbing low),
The suns's going down this very night—
    Might never rise no mo'. 
Hughes, langston. “song for a banjo dance.” THE CRISIS 24, NO. 6 (OCTOBER 1922): 267.

[1] Although today the banjo is mostly associated with bluegrass music, the earliest iterations of this musical instrument “were played exclusively by the enslaved at least two hundred years before whites ever considered laying hands on what was, to the slaveholding culture, a ‘primitive’ instrument.”

Contexts
Original cover from The Crisis‘ number that included “The Yellow Tree.”

Starting in 1912, the October issues of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, were dedicated to children. A typical edition of these children’s numbers would contain a special editorial piece and two or three literary works specifically for children, while still including the serious pieces about contemporary issues with a focus on race that The Crisis was known for. These October numbers were sprinkled with children’s photographs sent in by the readers.

In his first editorial for the Children’s number in 1912, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that “there is a sense in which all numbers and all words of a magazine of ideas myst point to the child—to that vast immortality and wide sweep and infinite possibility which the child represents.”

The success of The Crisis’ children’s number led to the standalone The Brownies’ Book, a monthly magazine for African American children that circulated from January 1920 to December 1921 under the editorship of Du Bois, Augustus Granville Dill, and Jessie Fauset.

Resources for Further Study
  • A photo essay by banjo scholar and performer Tony Thomas traces historical relationship between the banjo and African American musical culture.
  • The Creole bania, the oldest existing banjo, came from Suriname, in the Caribbean, and is on permanent display at the Tropenmuseum in the Netherlands.
  • Dena J. Epstein’s 1977 Sinful Tunes and Spirituals traces the history of African American music up to the Civil War. The book was the culmination of Epstein’s twenty-year research. She touches upon drums, banjo, and other instruments.
Contemporary Connections

Paul Ruta. “Black Musicians’ Quest to Return the Banjo to Its African Roots.”

In 2014, Malian n’goni player Cheick Hamala performed together with bluegrass banjoist Sammy Shelor and multi-instrumentalist Danny Knicely at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. The n’goni is the traditional string instrument that evolved into the Banjo in North America. The concert was aptly named “From Africa to Appalachia.”

Categories
1910s African American Poem Seasons

O Autumn, Autumn!

O Autumn, Autumn!

By Mary Effie Lee
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
William Henry Holmes. Autumn Tangle. Watercolor, 1920, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Florence Deakins Becker. Public domain.
O Autumn, Autumn! O pensive light and wistful sound!
Gold-haunted sky, green-haunted ground!
When, wan, the dead leaves flutter by
Deserted realms of butterfly!
When robins band themselves together
To seek the soul of sun-steeped weather;
And all of summer’s largesse goes
For lands of olive and the rose!
LEE, MARY EFFIE. “O AUTUMN, AUTUMN!” THE CRISIS 16, NO. 6 (OCTOBER 1918): 269.

Contexts

Mary Effie Lee kept contributing to The Crisis as Mary Lee Newsome after her wedding to Rev. H. N. Newsome of Selma, Alabama, in 1920. She was one of the African American poets who wrote primarily for children. The Envious Lobster also contains selections from Gladiola Garden, her one volume of poetry.

Starting in 1912, the October issues of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, were dedicated to children. A typical edition of these children’s numbers would contain a special editorial piece and two or three literary works specifically for children, while still including the serious pieces about contemporary issues with a focus on race that The Crisis was known for. These October numbers were sprinkled with children’s photographs sent in by the readers.

In his first editorial for the Children’s number in 1912, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that “there is a sense in which all numbers and all words of a magazine of ideas myst point to the child—to that vast immortality and wide sweep and infinite possibility which the child represents.”

The success of The Crisis’ children’s number led to the standalone The Brownies’ Book, a monthly magazine for African American children that circulated from January 1920 to December 1921 under the editorship of Du Bois, Augustus Granville Dill, and Jessie Fauset.

Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:

  • haunted: Frequented or much visited by spirits, imaginary beings, apparitions, spectres, etc.
  • largesse: The willingness to spend freely; (the virtue of) generosity; liberality, munificence.
  • wan: Lacking light, or lustre; dark-hued, dusky, gloomy, dark. Obsolete. Chiefly poetic.

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