Writing Promt

Read the poem below and choose one of the following writing prompts.

"The Song of the Smoke"

I am the Smoke King,

I am black!

I am swinging in the sky,

I am wringing worlds on awry;

I am the thought of the throbbing mills,

I am the soul of the soul-toil kills,

Wraithe of the ripple of trading rills,

Up I'm curling from the sod,

I am whirling home to God.

I am the Smoke King,

I am black.

I am the Smoke King,

I am black!

I am wreathing broken hearts,

I am sheathing love's light darts;

Inspiration of iron times,

Wedding the toil of toiling climes,

Shedding the blood of bloodless crimes --

Lurid lowering 'mid the blue,

Torrid towering toward the true,

I am the Smoke King,

I am black.

I am the Smoke King,

I am black!

I am darkening with song,

I am hearkening to wrong!

I will be black as blackness can --

The blacker the mantle the mightier the man!

For blackness was ancient ere whiteness began.

I am daubing God in night,

I am swabbing Hell in white:

I am the Smoke King,

I am black.

I am the Smoke King,

I am black!

I am cursing ruddy morn,

I am nursing hearts unborn:

Souls unto me are as stars in the night,

I whiten my black men -- I beckon my white!

What's the hue of a hide to a man in his might?

Hail, great, gritty, grimy hands --

Sweet Christ, pity toiling lands!

I am the Smoke King,

I am black.

Choice #1

Write a short poem or journal entry responding to "The Song of the Smoke," about how W.E.B. felt about being treated unfairly.

Choice #2

If you were light-skinned during the Harlem Renaissance and had the choice to pass as white, would you? If you would, how would you feel about not exposing the truth?