The poem “The Negro Soldiers” is more than art. It is a voice bearing witness to the experience of war from the perspective of the oppressed and formerly enslaved. Roscoe C. Jamison tells a story that must be remembered and a truth that deserves to be heard.
The Negro Soldiers
These truly are the Brave,
These men who cast aside
Old memories, to walk the blood-stained pave
Of Sacrifice, joining the solemn tide
That moves away, to suffer and to die
For Freedom—when their own is yet denied!
O Pride! O Prejudice! When they pass by,
Hail them, the Brave, for you now crucified!
These truly are the Free,
These souls that grandly rise
Above base dreams of vengeance for their wrongs,
Who march to war with visions in their eyes
Of Peace through Brotherhood, lifting glad songs,
Aforetime, while they front the firing line.
Stand and behold! They take the field today,
Shedding their blood like Him now held divine,
That those who mock might find a better way!
From The Book of American Negro Poetry (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922), edited by James Weldon Johnson. This poem is in the public domain.
Roscoe Conkling Jamison was born in Winchester, Tennessee in 1888. Jamison, who died around age thirty, was posthumously published after a friend discovered his work. His chapbook, Negro Soldiers (William F. Neil), was released in 1918. The eponymous poem about the sacrifices of African American soldiers during the First World War, for which he is best known, first appeared in the September 1917 issue of the Crisis.