A Poem by Angelina Weld Grimké
Featured in Kevin Young's New Anthology of African American Poetry
The Black Finger
I have just seen a most beautiful thing
Slim and still
Against a gold, gold sky,
A straight black cypress,
Sensitive,
Exquisite,
A black finger
Pointing upwards.
Why, beautiful still finger, are you black?
And why are you pointing upwards?
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Excerpted from African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song, edited by Kevin Young. Compilation copyright © 2020 by Library of America. Used by permission of the publisher.
Angelina Weld Grimké
Angelina Weld Grimké (1880–1958) b. Boston, MA. Named after her great-aunt, the abolitionist and suffragist Angelina Grimké Weld. Attended Cushing Academy and the Carleton School. First published poems appeared in periodicals after the turn of the twentieth century. Anti-lynching play Rachel was staged in Washington, DC, in 1916 and published in 1920.
