The educated Negro is a prickly pear,
Do not engage him naïve,
Pull on your Sunday garden gloves,
Speak mindful, have care,
And respecting his indignant thorns
You’ll find he’s a rose to share
For he was born to that partitioned world
Where a cross ‘n’ word was a trigger,
Observant young child, he’d cower and hide,
Until he found his father’s love was bigger
Than his faint and youthful heart could hold,
Deferring confrontation,
He sowed the seeds of Jim Crow iniquity
In the fertile gardens of his mind
When that near-sighted boy grew to a man,
A conjugated wizard,
He raised up that unrighteous crop,
All hateful scarring segregation’s pains,
And cast them out as the demons in his poems,
To break all free men’s chains
And now?
Is it his birthday? Did he die this day?
No, jus’ I remember,
Feel I ought wright a sumpthin’ mo’
Yet - February, history,
Was I invited to the party?
Might I tread all wrong your negro streets,
Who bid me welcome in this town?
Deep breath, and yes perhaps
Todays black poets, in his mien,
Don’t need me whitewash’n his name
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