Reading the various blogger reviews of The Great Debaters has me even more pumped to go check it out. Now y’all know that I can’t let all this talk of Melvin B. Tolson go on without reminding folks that, in addition to being an inspirational teacher, he was a great Modernist poet, whose epic poem, The Libretto for the Republic of Liberia, is a milestone of literary modernism1. Perhaps overshadowed by T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, The Libretto is as adventurous, intricate, complex, and learned as Eliot’s masterpiece. In fact, like The Waste Land, without extensive annotation, much of the poem will be lost on the reader. That may be a turn off for some folks, but if it’s not and you haven’t read The Libretto yet, I encourage you to do so.
The following is a section from another of Tolson’s great pieces, “Dark Symphony,” which was published in The Atlantic Monthly and won first place in a poetry contest sponsored by the American Negro Exposition in Chicago a year after the events of The Great Debaters.
II
Lento Grave2
The centuries-old pathos in our voices
Saddens the great white world
And the wizardry of our dusky rhythms
Conjures up shadow-shapes of ante-bellum years:
Black slaves singing One More River to Cross
In the torture tombs of slave-ships,
Black slaves singing Steal Away to Jesus
In jungle swamps
Black slaves singing The Crucifixion
In slave-pens at midnight,
Black slaves singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
In cabins of death,
Black slaves singing Go Down, Moses
In the canebrakes of the Southern Pharaohs.
III
Andante Sostenuto3
They tell us to forget
The Golgotha we tread…
We who are scourged with hate,
A price upon our head.
They who have shackled us
Require of us a song,
They who have wasted us
Bid us condone the wrong.
They tell us to forget
Democracy is spurned.
They tell us to forget
The Bill of Rights is burned.
Three hundred years we slaved,
We slave and suffer yet:
Though flesh and bone rebel,
They tell us to forget!
Oh, how can we forget
Our human rights denied?
Oh, how can we forget
Our manhood crucified?
When Justice is profaned
And plea with curse is met,
When Freedom’s gates are barred,
Oh, how can we forget?
Thanks for this info on Melvin Tolson, I’d never heard of him before this movie came out; and have been meaning to read up on him. This is good start, and good explination of his significants poetry wise.
Diffenitely go see that film as soon as possible. Early reciepts determine how long a movie will stay in the theatres and hence how much money it can make ultimately. That’s important because if films like this don’t make money we won’t get any more of them.
Yobachi – Tolson was a bad ass in every way. The more you read about him the more you’ll see that.
I’ll be seeing The Great Debaters this weekend. You can bet the ranch on that.
I wrote the second dissertation on Tolsson’s poetry. See my review of “The Great Debaters” at:
http://www.gurdjieff-books.net/blog/
Jon Woodson
Hey, Professor Woodson. What an honor it is have you stop by (yes, I am aware of your work). Thanks for the link. I’m heading over to read now.
Best.
Thanks for printing some of Tolson’s poetry. Just viewed THE GREAT DEBATERS. I teach in Music Dept at Langston University, OK, where as you know Tolson was professor & mayor of the town in the late 40’s; hoping my students will see the movie and be proud.
Hi Sandra! Thanks for stopping by. Definitively encourage your students to see the movie. They should be proud.