Paul Buchanan
The Negro a Beast in the Image of God
“America is more our country…we have enriched it with our blood and tears”
—David Walker, 1829
This land is my land, not your land.
From Atlanta to DC to New York
We built this place!
You raise your voices in denial
But our Earth speaks in blood and tears.
She can’t hear you.
“Negroes are a perishable Commodity. When you have an opportunity dispense of them for gold.”
—Humphrey Morice, 1730
If we’re still here, perishable
After all of the decay you’ve put us through
What does that make you, Humphrey?
You are rot, and we are wrought from time’s pressure.
You traded humanity for gold.
Does it keep you warm?
“There has been one bright hope to cheer me in all my troubles, and that is to be with you.”
—Harriet Newby, to her husband Dangerfield Newby, 1859
He will love you till then, Harriet.
When he joined Mr. Brown’s war, he was thinking of you, of the kids.
He wants an eternity of bright new days, but
The bullets have other ideas.
Anyway, I wanted to tell you his last words:
“Harriet, I’m
“I was soon put down under the decks…with the loathsomeness of the stench and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me.…”
—Olaudah Equiano, 1789
Hell is a slave ship.
A 6-foot tall space fitted with shelves
People stuffed in between, unable to stand for months.
Imagine the air choked with disease.
Imagine calling for your last friend and hearing no answer.
Heaven is a slave ship packed wall to wall with masters.
“Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.”
—Maya Angelou, 1978
They gave us gifts.
A gold coin. “This is what you are worth.”
One fivefinger. “Eat this and grow bright.”
Two mirrors. “Watch out.”
Three swords. “Fight back.”
Last, enough anger to collar a god. “Live, better than we did.”
“Let the people see what I have seen. Everybody needs to know what had happened to Emmett Till.”
—Mamie Till-Mobley, 1955
I saw him, you know. All of us coloreds have. I went to the exhibition to pay my respects and
ran into the laughter of the whites in line. Having fun.
I wanted to speak up but he sat up in his casket. Wolf-whistled.
Eyeball still hanging out the socket, head split front and back, exit wound face, unreckonable.
“Shut up,” he said with no tongue. “Let me die.”
They didn’t hear him.
“All men are created equal…with certain unalienable rights…whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”
—Declaration of Independence, 1776
Choose.
Noose or chain?
Amendment or abolition?
This declaration will not stand in this land of shallow graves, because
We are the People.
We are coming home.
Paul Buchanan is a sophomore at Swarthmore College whose work has received the John Russell Hayes Award and appeared in Swarthmore’s Visibility magazine. He finds inspiration from the people around him, notably his sisters, his mother, and his peers in the Swarthmore writing community.
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