Compiled by Delilah L. Beasley
These twenty-three poems were dispersed through Delilah L. Beasley’s The Negro Trail Blazers of California, where verse participates in the history rather than decorating it. The opening sequence moves from John Steven McGroarty’s regional praise to an anonymous reflection, Priscilla Stewart’s antislavery address, William Ross Wallace’s “Columbia,” and Cecilia Williams’s future-oriented “The Glory of the Coming Man.” James Madison Bell and William J. Wilson make emancipation and Black citizenship subjects for public declamation; Edward Cain and “Jeams” (Captain Ferguson) shift toward memorial, comic, and dialect performance.
The second half concentrates individual voices. Eloise Bibb-Thompson’s “A Garland of Prayer” uses devotional form for collective aspiration. William Nauns Ricks writes remembrance, greeting, and friendship lyrics; Charles Alexander moves between ethical maxim and domestic comedy. Eva Carter Buckner questions racial definition and imagines Lincoln’s return, while A. C. H. Bilbrew closes with a wartime tribute to Black soldiers. Rhymed occasional verse, songlike refrains, recitation pieces, dialect poems, and civic hymns dominate because these works belonged to newspapers, commemorations, churches, clubs, and public meetings. Read together in Beasley’s source order, they reveal poetry as one of the historical methods of the 1919 volume: a way to preserve names, stage arguments, and give communal memory a speaking voice.
Annotated Poetry Anthology · Public PDF
Contents
An editorial introduction precedes twenty-three complete poems extracted from Delilah L. Beasley’s 1919 history and retained in source order. The sequence includes civic, antislavery, devotional, memorial, comic, dialect, and wartime verse, followed by sources and editorial apparatus.
| Title | Creator | Genre / type | Reader PDF page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Editorial Introduction | Brian Kim Stefans | editorial introduction | reader PDF p. 2 |
| Just California | John Steven McGroarty | poem | reader PDF p. 4 |
| Sometimes amid the tumult and the throng | Anonymous | poem | reader PDF p. 5 |
| A Voice from the Oppressed to the Friends of Humanity | Priscilla Stewart | poem | reader PDF p. 6 |
| Columbia | William Ross Wallace | poem | reader PDF p. 7 |
| The Glory of the Coming Man | Cecilia Williams | poem | reader PDF p. 8 |
| Poem | James Madison Bell | poem | reader PDF p. 9 |
| The Coming Man | William J. Wilson | poem | reader PDF p. 11 |
| Forget-Me-Not | Edward Cain | poem | reader PDF p. 12 |
| Crispus Attucks | ‘Jeams’ (Captain Ferguson) | poem | reader PDF p. 13 |
| My Razor | ‘Jeams’ (Captain Ferguson) | poem | reader PDF p. 14 |
| Le Boutonniere | ‘Jeams’ (Captain Ferguson) | poem | reader PDF p. 15 |
| Withered Flowers | ‘Jeams’ (Captain Ferguson) | poem | reader PDF p. 16 |
| A Garland of Prayer | Eloise Bibb-Thompson | poem | reader PDF p. 17 |
| Do We Remember | William Nauns Ricks | poem | reader PDF p. 18 |
| A Greeting and a Wish for Easter | William Nauns Ricks | poem | reader PDF p. 19 |
| To an Old Friend | William Nauns Ricks | poem | reader PDF p. 20 |
| It Matters Much | Charles Alexander | poem | reader PDF p. 21 |
| What Constitutes a Negro? | Eva Carter Buckner | poem | reader PDF p. 22 |
| If Lincoln Could Return Today | Eva Carter Buckner | poem | reader PDF p. 24 |
| Only Be Strong | John H. Allen | poem | reader PDF p. 25 |
| My Kind of Man | Charles Alexander | poem | reader PDF p. 26 |
| My Mother's Custard Pie | Charles Alexander | poem | reader PDF p. 27 |
| The Black Boys in Khaki | A. C. H. Bilbrew | poem | reader PDF p. 28 |
| Sources and Editorial Apparatus | Brian Kim Stefans | digital edition apparatus | reader PDF p. 30 |
Contributors
- Delilah L. Beasley — Source compiler and historical framing
- John Steven McGroarty — Poet
- Anonymous — Poet
- Priscilla Stewart — Poet
- William Ross Wallace — Poet
- Cecilia Williams — Poet
- James Madison Bell — Poet
- William J. Wilson — Poet
- Edward Cain — Poet
- ‘Jeams’ (Captain Ferguson) — Poet
- Eloise Bibb-Thompson — Poet
- William Nauns Ricks — Poet
- Charles Alexander — Poet
- Eva Carter Buckner — Poet
- John H. Allen — Poet
- A. C. H. Bilbrew — Poet
- Brian Kim Stefans — Editorial introduction and digital edition apparatus
Publication details
Subjects and editorial notes
Subjects
Keywords
Delilah L. Beasley Black poetry California The Negro Trail Blazers of California citizenship 1919
Continuity notes
Part of the shared Anthologies and Documents collection.
Edition note
The formatted edition presents the selected source text in a stable, searchable reading format with modern navigation. Source scans remain private editorial evidence and are not part of the public upload. For the website upload, the page canvas was proportionally fitted to a 6 × 9 inch trim without cropping or changing the text.
Source note
Metadata and contents were checked against the 30-page formatted PDF and the identified source scan files where available.
Rights and citation
Copyright notice
Copyright in public-domain source texts has expired in the United States. Copyright in later works and new editorial matter remains with the respective authors, editors, publishers, or successors.
Rights status
Public Domain
Rights basis
The poems and source compilation were published in 1919 and are in the public domain in the United States. New editorial introduction, apparatus, and design were prepared in 2026.
Suggested citation
Poems from The Negro Trail Blazers of California. Drawn from Delilah L. Beasley’s 1919 history. Text/Tech Anthologies and Documents, reader’s edition, 2026.