Margaret Walker

“Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second generation full of courage issue forth; let a people loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing in our spirits and our blood. Let the martial songs be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now rise and take control.”

As Howard Zinn said “It was all there in poetry […] the signs of a people unbeaten, waiting, hot, coiled.” His words and a last verse of Margaret Walker’s poem called “For My People” written in 1942 says a lot about feelings that blacks had at that time. Black people still had in their minds dormant thoughts of not having a 100% of freedom. They still had on their backs shadow of slavery. As soon as they were able to appear somehow and somewhere in a society like for instance by writing a poem or song lyrics, they wanted to show their independence. For them that was a new beginning, but they also knew that they will never forget how the America welcomed them.
After WWII since 1947 I presume they had two cold wars to struggle with; one opposition coming from Soviet Union and a second one coming from white Americans who still were not able to accept equality between races. By writing a poems blacks showed that they mean a lot for the America, and all kinds of people living here now, as well as in the future, should be familiar with the entire history of it.