Collection

Celebrating Black History Month

Poems, articles, and podcasts that explore African American history and culture.

Illustration by Loveis Wise.

Poems

- Harlem
  Langston Hughes
- On Liberty and Slavery
  George Moses Horton
- Lift Every Voice and Sing
  James Weldon Johnson
- Praise Song for the Day
  Elizabeth Alexander
- I, Too
  Langston Hughes
- Frederick Douglass
  Robert Hayden
- Caged Bird
  Maya Angelou
- For My People
  Margaret Walker
- Riot
  Gwendolyn Brooks
- Narrative: Ali
  Elizabeth Alexander
- Canary
  Rita Dove
- Booker T. and W.E.B.
  Dudley Randall
- Georgia Dusk
  Jean Toomer
- In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.
  June Jordan
- Malcolm X, February 1965
  E. Ethelbert Miller
- American History
  Michael S. Harper
- The African Burial Ground
  Yusef Komunyakaa
- A Negro Love Song
  Paul Laurence Dunbar
- Middle Passage
  Robert Hayden
- from The Lost Letters of Frederick Douglass
  Evie Shockley
- Ode to Big Trend
  Terrance Hayes
- waiting on the mayflower
  Evie Shockley
- Nina's Blues
  Cornelius Eady
- 1977: Poem for Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer
  June Jordan
- Race
  Elizabeth Alexander
- History as Process
  Amiri Baraka
- Ballad of Birmingham
  Dudley Randall
- Citizen: “You are in the dark, in the car...”
  Claudia Rankine
- From the Unwritten Letters of Joseph Freeman
  Camille T. Dungy
- Manifesto, or Ars Poetica #2
  Krista Franklin
- Green-Thumb Boy
  Marilyn Nelson
- The Laws of Motion
  Nikki Giovanni
- Billie Holiday
  E. Ethelbert Miller
- American Income
  Afaa Michael Weaver
- The Slave Auction
  Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
- Miz Rosa Rides the Bus
  Angela Jackson
- The Gospel of Barbecue
  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
- Eddie Priest’s Barbershop & Notary
  Kevin Young
- A Black Man Talks of Reaping
  Arna Bontemps
- Runagate Runagate
  Robert Hayden
- Black Boys Play the Classics
  Toi Derricotte
- Ode to Herb Kent
  Jamila Woods
- alternate names for black boys
  Danez Smith
- Sorrow Home
  Margaret Walker
- Dr. Booker T. Washington to the National Negro Business League
  Joseph Seamon Cotter Sr.
- faithless
  Quraysh Ali Lansana
- Enlightenment
  Natasha Trethewey
- Harlem Shadows
  Claude McKay
- Southern Gothic
  Rickey Laurentiis
- Ghana Calls
  W. E. B. Du Bois
- Dancing with Strom
  Nikky Finney
- __________ my loved blacknesses & some blacknesses I knew
  Khadijah Queen
- Afterimages
  Audre Lorde
- [up from slobbery]
  Harryette Mullen
- Robeson at Rutgers
  Elizabeth Alexander
- The Fifth Fact
  Sarah Browning
- Rwanda: Where Tears Have No Power
  Haki R. Madhubuti
- The Great Pax Whitie
  Nikki Giovanni
- Citizen: “Some years there exists a wanting to escape...”
  Claudia Rankine
- Poem for My Father
  Quincy Troupe
- Take Me Out to the Go-Go
  Thomas Sayers Ellis
- Slave Sale: New Orleans
  Charles Reznikoff
- We Real Cool
  Gwendolyn Brooks

Articles

- 200 Years of Afro-American Poetry
  Langston Hughes
- The Black Poet as Canon-Maker
  Elizabeth Alexander
- The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain
  Langston Hughes
- The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America
  June Jordan
- “Finding a Window”
  Kimberly Reyes
- Lights and Shadows
  Delaney Hall
- Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood
  June Jordan
- Blueprint for BreakBeat Writing
  Nate Marshall
- Beware the Dog
  Abigail Deutsch
- Langston Hughes and the Broadway Blues
  Franklin Bruno
- Jazz as Communication
  Langston Hughes
- Playing by Ear, Praying for Rain: The Poetry of James Baldwin
  Nikky Finney
- She Could Tell You Stories
  Hilary Holladay
- The Roads Taken
  Haki R. Madhubuti
- Life Upon These Shores
  Lavelle Porter
- Way Out of Africa
  Charles Mudede
- Art, Artifice, and Artifact
  Quraysh Ali Lansana
- Music in the Blood
  Elias Rodriques

Educational Resources

- With A Little Help from Dr. Angelou
  The Editors
- Experience, Experiment
  Patricia Spears Jones
- Square Toes and Icy Arms
  Catherine Barnett
- Verse Journalism: The Poet as Witness
  Quraysh Ali Lansana
- Maya Angelou: Selections
  The Editors
- Gwendolyn Brooks: Selections
  Sarah Alcaide-Escue
- Elizabeth Alexander: “Race”
  Stephanie Burt
- Nikky Finney: “The Afterbirth, 1931”
  Kwame Dawes
- Gwendolyn Brooks: “kitchenette building”
  Hannah Brooks-Motl
- Robert Hayden: “Those Winter Sundays”
  David Biespiel
- Lucille Clifton: “won't you celebrate with me”
  Robin Ekiss

Podcasts