SINGING NIGGER

Your bony head, Jazbo, O dock walloper,

Those grappling hooks, those wheelbarrow handlers,

The dome and the wings of you, nigger,

The red roof and the door of you,

I know where your songs came from.

I knew why God listens to your, “Walk All Over God’s Heaven”.

I heard you shooting craps, “My baby’s going to have a new dress”.

I heard you in the cinders, “I’m going to live anyhow until I die”.

I saw five of you with a can of beer on a summer night

And I listened to the five of you harmonizing six ways

To sing, “Way Down Yonder in the Cornfield”.

I went away asking where I come from.

      Carl August Sandburg  (1878 – 1967)