Heritage
I want to see the slim palm-trees,
Pulling at the clouds
With little pointed fingers….
I want to see lithe Negro girls,
Etched dark against the sky
While sunset lingers.
I want to hear the silent sands,
Singing to the moon
Before the Sphinx-still face….
I want to hear the chanting
Around a heathen fire
Of a strange black race.
I want to breathe the Lotus flow’r,
Sighing to the stars
With tendrils drinking at the Nile….
I want to feel the surging
Of my sad people’s soul
Hidden by a minstrel-smile.
From The Book of American Negro Poetry (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922) edited by James Weldon Johnson. This poem is in the public domain.
Gwendolyn Bennett
Gwendolyn Bennett was born on July 8, 1902, in Giddings, Texas, to Joshua Robin and Mayme (née Abernathy). Bennett spent her early childhood in Washington, D.C. Her parents divorced when she was around four. Joshua kidnapped Bennett in 1910. Father and daughter lived on the run for a lengthy period, moving between Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, and New York. Bennett had no further contact with her mother until she was an adult. She attended Brooklyn Girl’s High School and graduated in 1921.