We present this work in honor of the Jamaican holiday, Emancipation Day.

 

Each race that breathes the air of God’s fair world
Is so bound up within its little self,
So jealous for material wealth and power
That it forgets to look outside itself
Save when there is some prospect of rich gain;
Forgetful yet that each and every race
Is brother unto his, and in the heart
Of every human being excepting none,
There lies the selfsame love, the selfsame fear,
The selfsame craving for the best that is,
False pride and petty prejudice prevail
Where love and brotherhood should have full sway.

When shall this cease? ‘Tis God alone who knows;
But we who see through this hypocrisy
And feel the blood of black and white alike
Course through our veins as our strong heritage
Must range ourselves to build the younger race.
What matter that we be as cagéd birds
Who beat their breasts against the iron bars
Till blood-drops fall, and in heartbreaking songs
Our souls pass out to God? These very words,
In anguish sung, will mightily prevail.
We will not be among the happy heirs
Of this grand heritage – but unto us
Will come their gratitude and praise,
And children yet unborn will reap in joy
What we have sown in tears.

For there will come
A time when all the races of the earth,
Grown weary of the inner urge for gain,
Grown sick of all the fatness of themselves
And all their boasted prejudice and pride,
Will see this vision that now comes to me.
Aye, there will come a time when every man
Will feel that other men are brethren unto him—
When men will look into each other’s hearts
And souls, and not upon their skin and brain,
And difference in the customs of the race.
Though I should live a hundred years,
I should not see this time, but while I live,
‘Tis mine to share in this gigantic task
Of oneness for the world’s humanity.