Frances E. Harper (1825 - 1911)
Born in Baltimore, poet, fiction writer, journalist, and activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was the only child of free African American parents. She was raised by her aunt and uncle after her mother died when Frances was three years old. She attended the Academy for Negro Youth, a school run by her uncle, until the age of 13, and then found domestic work in a Quaker household, where she had access to a wide range of literature. After teaching for two years in Ohio and Pennsylvania, she embarked on a career as a traveling speaker on the abolitionist circuit. She helped slaves escape through the Underground Railroad and wrote frequently for anti-slavery newspapers, earning her a reputation as the mother of African American journalism.
A prolific writer, Harper published many collections of poetry, including Autumn Leaves (also published as Forest Leaves) (1845); Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1854), which was reprinted 20 times; Sketches of Southern Life (1872), which chronicles Reconstruction; Poems (1857); The Martyr of Alabama and Other Poems (1892); The Sparrow’s Fall and Other Poems (1894); and Atlanta Offering (1895). Harper also published several novels, including Iola Leroy (1892), and essay collections. Her short story “The Two Offers” was the first short story published by an African American. Her poetry has been collected in Complete Poems of Frances E.W. Harper (1988, ed. Maryemma Graham), and her prose in A Brighter Coming Day (1990, ed. Frances Smith Foster).
She married Fenton Harper in 1860. He brought to the marriage three children of his own, and together they had a daughter. When her husband died in 1864, Harper continued to support her family though speaking engagements. During Reconstruction she was an activist for civil rights, women’s rights, and educational opportunities for all. She was superintendent of the Colored Section of the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Women’s Christian Temperance Union, co-founder and vice president of the National Association of Colored Women, and a member of the American Women’s Suffrage Association. Harper was also the director of the American Association of Colored Youth.
Courtesy of The Poetry Foundation
A prolific writer, Harper published many collections of poetry, including Autumn Leaves (also published as Forest Leaves) (1845); Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1854), which was reprinted 20 times; Sketches of Southern Life (1872), which chronicles Reconstruction; Poems (1857); The Martyr of Alabama and Other Poems (1892); The Sparrow’s Fall and Other Poems (1894); and Atlanta Offering (1895). Harper also published several novels, including Iola Leroy (1892), and essay collections. Her short story “The Two Offers” was the first short story published by an African American. Her poetry has been collected in Complete Poems of Frances E.W. Harper (1988, ed. Maryemma Graham), and her prose in A Brighter Coming Day (1990, ed. Frances Smith Foster).
She married Fenton Harper in 1860. He brought to the marriage three children of his own, and together they had a daughter. When her husband died in 1864, Harper continued to support her family though speaking engagements. During Reconstruction she was an activist for civil rights, women’s rights, and educational opportunities for all. She was superintendent of the Colored Section of the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Women’s Christian Temperance Union, co-founder and vice president of the National Association of Colored Women, and a member of the American Women’s Suffrage Association. Harper was also the director of the American Association of Colored Youth.
Courtesy of The Poetry Foundation
Selected Writings
Prose
Excerpt from “We Are All Bound Up Together”
Frances E. W. Harper
In May 1866, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a leading poet, lecturer and civil rights activist, addressed the Eleventh National Women’s Rights Convention in New York, joining Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott, who were among the featured speakers. Her address appears below.
I feel I am something of a novice upon this platform. Born of a race whose inheritance has been outrage and wrong, most of my life had been spent in battling against those wrongs. But I did not feel as keenly as others, that I had these rights, in common with other women, which are now demanded.[…]
We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity, and society cannot trample on the weakest and feeblest of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul. You tried that in the case of the negro. You pressed him down for two centuries; and in so doing you crippled the moral strength and paralyzed the spiritual energies of the white men of the country. When the hands of the black were fettered, white men were deprived of the liberty of speech and the freedom of the press. Society cannot afford to neglect the enlightenment of any class of its members. At the South, the legislation of the country was in behalf of the rich slaveholders, while the poor white man was neglected. What is the consequence today? From that very class of neglected poor white men, comes the man who stands today, with his hand upon the helm of the nation. He fails to catch the watchword of the hour, and throws himself, the incarnation of meanness, across the pathway of the nation. My objection to Andrew Johnson is not that he has been a poor white man; my objection is that he keeps “poor whits” all the way through. (Applause.) That is the trouble with him.
This grand and glorious revolution which has commenced, will fail to reach its climax of success, until throughout the length and breadth of the American Republic, the nation shall be so color-blind, as to know no man by the color of his skin or the curl of his hair. It will then have no privileged class, trampling upon outraging the unprivileged classes, but will be then one great privileged nation, whose privilege will be to produce the loftiest manhood and womanhood that humanity can attain.
I do not believe that giving the woman the ballot is immediately going to cure all the ills of life. I do not believe that white women are dew-drops just exhaled from the skies. I think that like men they may be divided into three classes, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. The good would vote according to their convictions and principles; the bad, as dictated by prejudice or malice; and the indifferent will vote on the strongest side of the question, with the winning party.
You white women speak here of rights. I speak of wrongs. I, as a colored woman, have had in this country an education which has made me feel as if I were in the situation of Ishmael, my hand against every man, and every man’s hand against stop the car rather than let me ride.
In advocating the cause of the colored man, since the Dred Scott decision, I have sometimes said I thought the nation had touched bottom. But let me tell you there is a depth of infamy lower than that. It is when the nation, standing upon the threshold of a great peril, reached out its hands to a feebler race, and asked that race to help it, and when the peril was over, said, You are good enough for soldiers, but not good enough for citizens. When Judge Taney said that the men of my race had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, he had not seen the bones of the black man bleaching outside of Richmond. He had not seen the thinned ranks and the thickened graves of the Louisiana Second, a regiment which went into battle nine hundred strong, and came out with three hundred. He had not stood at Olustee and seen defeat and disaster crushing down the pride of our banner, until word was brought to Col. Hallowell, “The day is lost; go in and save it;” and black men stood in the gap, beat back the enemy, and saved your army.
Public Domain, Courtesy of Moonstone Art Center by permission.
Frances E. W. Harper
In May 1866, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a leading poet, lecturer and civil rights activist, addressed the Eleventh National Women’s Rights Convention in New York, joining Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott, who were among the featured speakers. Her address appears below.
I feel I am something of a novice upon this platform. Born of a race whose inheritance has been outrage and wrong, most of my life had been spent in battling against those wrongs. But I did not feel as keenly as others, that I had these rights, in common with other women, which are now demanded.[…]
We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity, and society cannot trample on the weakest and feeblest of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul. You tried that in the case of the negro. You pressed him down for two centuries; and in so doing you crippled the moral strength and paralyzed the spiritual energies of the white men of the country. When the hands of the black were fettered, white men were deprived of the liberty of speech and the freedom of the press. Society cannot afford to neglect the enlightenment of any class of its members. At the South, the legislation of the country was in behalf of the rich slaveholders, while the poor white man was neglected. What is the consequence today? From that very class of neglected poor white men, comes the man who stands today, with his hand upon the helm of the nation. He fails to catch the watchword of the hour, and throws himself, the incarnation of meanness, across the pathway of the nation. My objection to Andrew Johnson is not that he has been a poor white man; my objection is that he keeps “poor whits” all the way through. (Applause.) That is the trouble with him.
This grand and glorious revolution which has commenced, will fail to reach its climax of success, until throughout the length and breadth of the American Republic, the nation shall be so color-blind, as to know no man by the color of his skin or the curl of his hair. It will then have no privileged class, trampling upon outraging the unprivileged classes, but will be then one great privileged nation, whose privilege will be to produce the loftiest manhood and womanhood that humanity can attain.
I do not believe that giving the woman the ballot is immediately going to cure all the ills of life. I do not believe that white women are dew-drops just exhaled from the skies. I think that like men they may be divided into three classes, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. The good would vote according to their convictions and principles; the bad, as dictated by prejudice or malice; and the indifferent will vote on the strongest side of the question, with the winning party.
You white women speak here of rights. I speak of wrongs. I, as a colored woman, have had in this country an education which has made me feel as if I were in the situation of Ishmael, my hand against every man, and every man’s hand against stop the car rather than let me ride.
In advocating the cause of the colored man, since the Dred Scott decision, I have sometimes said I thought the nation had touched bottom. But let me tell you there is a depth of infamy lower than that. It is when the nation, standing upon the threshold of a great peril, reached out its hands to a feebler race, and asked that race to help it, and when the peril was over, said, You are good enough for soldiers, but not good enough for citizens. When Judge Taney said that the men of my race had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, he had not seen the bones of the black man bleaching outside of Richmond. He had not seen the thinned ranks and the thickened graves of the Louisiana Second, a regiment which went into battle nine hundred strong, and came out with three hundred. He had not stood at Olustee and seen defeat and disaster crushing down the pride of our banner, until word was brought to Col. Hallowell, “The day is lost; go in and save it;” and black men stood in the gap, beat back the enemy, and saved your army.
Public Domain, Courtesy of Moonstone Art Center by permission.
Poetry
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Songs for the People
Let me make the songs for the people, Songs for the old and young; Songs to stir like a battle-cry Wherever they are sung. Not for the clashing of sabres, For carnage nor for strife; But songs to thrill the hearts of men With more abundant life. Let me make the songs for the weary, Amid life's fever and fret, Till hearts shall relax their tension, And careworn brows forget. Let me sing for little children, Before their footsteps stray, Sweet anthems of love and duty, To float o'er life's highway. I would sing for the poor and aged, When shadows dim their sight; Of the bright and restful mansions, Where there shall be no night. Our world, so worn and weary, Needs music, pure and strong, To hush the jangle and discords Of sorrow, pain, and wrong. Music to soothe all its sorrow, Till war and crime shall cease; And the hearts of men grown tender Girdle the world with peace. ***************************************************************** Bury Me in a Free Land Make me a grave where'er you will, In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill; Make it among earth's humblest graves, But not in a land where men are slaves. I could not rest if around my grave I heard the steps of a trembling slave; His shadow above my silent tomb Would make it a place of fearful gloom. I could not rest if I heard the tread Of a coffle gang to the shambles led, And the mother's shriek of wild despair Rise like a curse on the trembling air. I could not sleep if I saw the lash Drinking her blood at each fearful gash, And I saw her babes torn from her breast, Like trembling doves from their parent nest. I'd shudder and start if I heard the bay Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey, And I heard the captive plead in vain As they bound afresh his galling chain. If I saw young girls from their mother's arms Bartered and sold for their youthful charms, My eye would flash with a mournful flame, My death-paled cheek grow red with shame. I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated might Can rob no man of his dearest right; My rest shall be calm in any grave Where none can call his brother a slave. I ask no monument, proud and high, To arrest the gaze of the passers-by; All that my yearning spirit craves, Is bury me not in a land of slaves. |
Vashti
She leaned her head upon her hand And heard the King's decree -- "My lords are feasting in my halls; Bid Vashti come to me. "I've shown the treasures of my house, My costly jewels rare, But with the glory of her eyes No rubies can compare. "Adorn'd and crown'd I'd have her come, With all her queenly grace, And, 'mid my lords and mighty men, Unveil her lovely face. "Each gem that sparkles in my crown, Or glitters on my throne, Grows poor and pale when she appears, My beautiful, my own!" All waiting stood the chamberlains To hear the Queen's reply. They saw her cheek grow deathly pale, But light flash'd to her eye: "Go, tell the King," she proudly said, "That I am Persia's Queen, And by his crowds of merry men I never will be seen. "I'll take the crown from off my head And tread it 'neath my feet, Before their rude and careless gaze My shrinking eyes shall meet. "A queen unveil'd before the crowd! -- Upon each lip my name! -- Why, Persia's women all would blush And weep for Vashti's shame! "Go back!" she cried, and waved her hand, And grief was in her eye: "Go, tell the King," she sadly said, "That I would rather die." They brought her message to the King; Dark flash'd his angry eye; 'Twas as the lightning ere the storm Hath swept in fury by. Then bitterly outspoke the King, Through purple lips of wrath -- "What shall be done to her who dares To cross your monarch's path?" Then spake his wily counsellors -- "O King of this fair land! From distant Ind to Ethiop, All bow to thy command. "But if, before thy servants' eyes, This thing they plainly see, That Vashti doth not heed thy will Nor yield herself to thee, "The women, restive 'neath our rule, Would learn to scorn our name, And from her deed to us would come Reproach and burning shame. "Then, gracious King, sign with thy hand This stern but just decree, That Vashti lay aside her crown, Thy Queen no more to be." She heard again the King's command, And left her high estate; Strong in her earnest womanhood, She calmly met her fate, And left the palace of the King, Proud of her spotless name -- A woman who could bend to grief, But would not bow to shame. |
