Remember my years, heavy with sorrow --
Look at my face -- dark as the night --
Stand like free men supporting my trust.
I am the one who labored as a slave,
I couldnt read then. I couldnt write.
In order that the race might live and grow.
Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave --
Yet shining like the sun with loves true light.
No safety , no love, no respect was I due.
I am the dark girl who crossed the red sea
I nourished the dream that nothing could smother
Deep in my breast -- the Negro mother.
Sometimes, the valley was filled with tears,
Bringing the cotton and the corn to yield.
Believe in the right, let none push you back.
Remember how the strong in struggle and strife
But I had to keep on till my work was done:
Now, through my children, Im reaching the goal.
I was the seed of the coming Free.
I had only hope then , but now through you,
But I kept trudging on through the lonely years.
Out of the darkness, the ignorance, the night.
But God put a song and a prayer in my mouth .
Remember my sweat, my pain, my despair.
Impel you forever up the great stairs --
Look ever upward at the sun and the stars.
Now, through my children, young and free,
And make of those years a torch for tomorrow.
Dark ones of today, my dreams must come true:
All you dark children in the world out there,
Dares keep down the children of the Negro Mother.
Children, I come back today
Children sold away from me, Im husband sold, too.
Carrying in my body the seed of the free.
Langston Hughes
Oh, my dark children, may my dreams and my prayers
I had to keep on! No stopping for me --
The Negro Mother
To tell you a story of the long dark way
That I had to climb, that I had to know
God put a dream like steel in my soul.
Still bar you the way, and deny you life --
Sometimes, the road was hot with the sun,
I realized the blessing deed to me.
But march ever forward, breaking down bars.
Remember the whip and the slavers track.
Three hundred years in the deepest South:
I am the woman who worked in the field
Make of my pass a road to the light
Lift high my banner out of the dust.
I had nothing, back there in the night.
For I will be with you till no white brother
