From the time of the Hebrew prophets to Zora Neale Hurston and writers of the Harlem Renaissance, poets have used the power of the written word to push back against oppression and enunciate what the times require. It was the poem "Invictus," written by William Ernest Henly in 1875, that Nelson Mandela credited with giving him courage to endure his eighteen years of imprisonment on Robben Island and emerge victorious as the leader of South Africa's liberation movement. Poetry rises up from the depths and fortifies the soul.
Here is a poem titled "I Look At The World," by African American author Langston Hughes, written in 1930 but not published until 2009 when the verses were found penciled into the back of a book from his archives.
I look at the world
From awakening eyes in a black face—
And this is what I see:
This fenced-off narrow space
Assigned to me.
I look then at the silly walls
Through dark eyes in a dark face—
And this is what I know:
That all these walls oppression builds
Will have to go!
I look at my own body
With eyes no longer blind—
And I see that my own hands can make
The world that's in my mind.
Then let us hurry, comrades,
The road to find.
The Smithsonian Museum of African American History has recently come under fire from the Trump administration for pushing allegedly "divisive narratives." Poetry editor of the New Yorker Kevin Young, who had led the museum since 2021, was forced from his position in April. But acknowledging America's shortcomings, including its dark chapters of enslavement, Jim Crow and mass incarceration, is the way we make amends to build a more perfect union. The "race-centered ideology" that threatens America now is the very one contained in Trump's executive order to make the Smithsonian a "symbol of inspiration and American greatness" by sanitizing and whitewashing our nation's past.
Before leaving his post, Young told Smithsonian employees that “we remain committed to telling the multifaceted stories of this country’s extraordinary heritage.”
Let us hurry, comrades, that road to find.
