Categories
1920s African American Poem War

In Flanders Fields: An Echo

By Orlando C. W. Taylor with annotations by Rene Marzuk

In Flanders Fields: An Echo[1]

By Orlando C. W. Taylor
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
Willard Metcalf. “Poppy Field (Landscape at Giverny).” Oil on canvas, 1886, Collection of J. Jeffrey and Ann Marie Fox. Public domain. 
In Flanders fields the poppies blow[2] 
Between the crosses, row on row 
     That mark the graves where black men lie;[3] 
     Their souls, long wafted to the sky, 
Look down upon the earth below.
 
E’en while we mourn their loss, we see 
Their brothers hanged upon a tree 
     By whom they saved. Their pain fraught cry[4] 
     Mounts up to those who stand on high, 
And watch the scarlet flowered sea 
     In Flanders fields. 

In Flanders Fields they shall not sleep!
No! For their murdered kin they keep
     A vigil through the day and night, 
     'Til God Himself shall snatch from sight 
Such scenes as make our heroes weep 
     In Flanders fields.
TAYLOR, ORLANDO C. W. “IN FLANDERS FIELDS,” IN THE DUNBAR SPEAKER AND ENTERTAINER, ED. ALICE MOORE DUNBAR-NELSON, 144. NAPERVILLE, ILL: J. L. NICHOLS & CO., 1920.

[1] Taylor’s poem references “In Flanders Fields,” a famous memorial poem written by Canadian officer John McCrae during the First World War. McCrae’s original poem helped establish the red poppy as the flower of remembrance.

[2] Flanders Fields, which spans across sections of Belgium and France, was the site of several World War I battlefields.

[3] According to the U.S. Department of Defense, more than 380,000 African-Americans served in the Army during World War I.

[Unidentified African American soldier in uniform with First Army shoulder insignia and campaign hat in front of painted backdrop]. Gelatin silver print, 1918-1919, Library of Congress. Public domain.

[4] During 1882 and 1968, 4,743 people were lynched in the U.S. Of them, 3,446 were African Americans.

Contexts

The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer‘s dedication reads: “To the children of the race which is herein celebrated, this book is dedicated, that they may read and learn about their own people.” In the foreword, Leslie Pinckney Hill, an African American educator, writer, and community leader who graduated from Harvard University in 1903, criticizes the one-sidedness of prevailing reading courses: “In vain may you search their pages—those pages upon which all our reading has been founded—for anything other than a patronizing view of that vast, brooding world of colored folk—yellow, black and brown—which comprises by far the largest portion of the human family.” Hill further writes that Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s book seeks to prove “that the white man has no fine quality, either by heart or mind, which is not shared by his black brother.”

Think of reading this poem out loud. Elocution (or public speaking) was a highly valued and widely taught skill in nineteenth-century America. In her introduction to the Dunbar Speaker, Alice Dunbar-Nelson offers some advice: “Before you begin to learn anything to recite, first read it over and find out if it fires you with enthusiasm. If it does, make it a part of yourself, put yourself in the place of the speaker whose words you are memorizing, get on fire with the thought, the sentiment, the emotion-then throw yourself into it in your endeavor to make others feel as you feel, see as you see, understand what you understand. Lose yourself, free yourself from physical consciousness, forget that those in front of you are a part of an audience, think of them as some persons whom you must make understand what is thrilling you–and you will be a great speaker.”

Resources for Further Study

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