Carrie Williams Clifford

Tercentenary of the Landing of Slaves at Jamestown

Volume 16:1, January 2015
Sonnet Issue

Tercentenary of the Landing of Slaves at Jamestown

Upon the slaver’s deck, a motley band
Of blacks looked out upon the boundless main,
Knowing with anguished hearts that ne’er again
Their feet, with pride, would press their native land;
Theirs thenceforth to obey the rude command
Of masters, wielding cruel lash and chain,
Wringing three centuries of toil and pain
From helpless slaves! Then waved war’s magic wand,
And, at the sign, up rose twelve million men
A brave, patriotic host, of great power,
To serve America in her crucial hour;
Titanic power, to bless or curse; for when
Pent wrong, injustice and oppression break,
Vesuvius-like, the heart of earth they shake!

 

Carrie Williams Clifford (1862 - 1934) is the author of two books of poems, Race Rhymes (1911), and The Widening Light (1922). In addition, her short fiction, articles, and poems were published in Opportunity and The Crisis. She and her husband William Clifford (a lawyer) moved from Cleveland to DC around 1910, after the birth of their two sons. She hosted a Sunday evening salon in her home for African American artists and intellectuals (such as Mary Church Terrell, Alain Locke, William L. Hunt, Amanda Hilyer, Harry T. Burleigh, Will Marion Cook, and Georgia Douglas Johnson), and was active in groups advocating for civil rights and women's rights, including the National Association of Colored Women and the NAACP. In her preface to The Widening Light, Clifford wrote: "The author makes no claim to unusual poetic excellence or literary brilliance. She is seeking to call attention to a condition, which she, at least, considers serious. Knowing that this may often be done more impressively through rhyme that in an elegant prose, she has take this method to accomplish this end... The theme of the group here presented—the uplift of humanity—is the loftiest that can animate the heart and pen of man: the treatment, she trusts, is not wholly unworthy...she send these lines forth with the prayer that they may change some heart, or right some wrong." To read more by this author: "Lincoln" in the Mapping the City Issue