English 473
Rachael Newmister
Dr. Churchill
9/24/2012
Universal Segregation:
A poetic conversation of racial inequality in The Crisis
These two poems were found in the little magazine The Crisis in the March 1914 publication.
The editor of this magazine has chosen to place two poems next to each other that seem to contradict
one another. One title being “Universal Brotherhood” by Margaret Von Seydewitz and the other is “On
Segregation” authored by Arthur Tunnell. With heightened sensitivity to reading a page and to picking
up on bibliographic codes, thanks to scholar Bornstein, I have found the placement of these two poems
to be working in tandem to send a message to the audience. The message communicates to the Negro
audience, and perhaps broader reader that there is in fact no “universal brotherhood” that Von
Seydewitz has proposed by rather as the subsequent poet Arthur Tunnell suggests a deep struggle still
for equality. In studying the biographical and linguistic codes of these two poems we see The Crisis
pushing the audience to see the inequality of the races and resist the “dominant white culture” that
Churchill emphasizes in her article, “Youth Culture in The Crisis and Fire!!” (Churchill 97). I will explore
here how the aesthetic quality of the poems reaffirm Churchill’s thesis about how The Crisis promotes
new Negro mentality but also see how these poems does not include some of the African and primitive
elements that Churchill picks up on as a theme in The Crisis (Churchill 97).
In her thesis on Negro poetry, Churchill maintains poetry in The Crisis and Fire!! “worked in
concert to forge links between New Negro youth culture, free verse, and African aesthetics, and to
foster the development of a distinctly modern, youthful poetic idiom…” (Churchill 81). The first poem
“Universal Brotherhood” has a different aesthetic quality to it rather than Negro pride emphasized by
Churchill. The first poem is written by a German author. Does she understand what it is like to be black
in the American society? Has she experienced the effects of segregation coming from an Aryan culture?
From the content of the poem it doesn’t appear that the speaker has felt the bitter poison of racism and
slavery that had divided the black race in America. Instead the content of the poem celebrates an
idealized view of brotherhood that seems to dismiss segregation and tries to superficially promote
“hearts united, beating/ in human brotherhood” (lines 7-8).
Contrastingly, the Arthur Tunnell’s poem responds directly to the racial issues of the time. The
specific event is mentioned in the poem as “the Washington protest meeting.” This author has been in
the midst of racial inequality and has felt the racial tensions that Von Seydewitz has not. Again,
intelligently, the editor chose to place an Aryan author next to a black author to emphasize how there
can be no idealized mentality of equality because it simply does not exist. I think the placement of these
poems side by side allows for a subtle argument between these two ideologies of racial equality that the
reader can see are in opposition. As a result, the reader could recognize by the argument these two
poems are having that the black race really is submissive to the white and that segregation is still
present. In effect, I think Churchill is right when she argues The Crisis’s contents could inspire modern
thought about the black identity (Churchill 78).
If we also look at the linguistic codes we also find that the second poem “On Segregation” plays
into the idea that Churchill mentions on page 79 of her article that “The Crisis gave aspiring young poets
like Hughes the opportunity to represent down-trodden, working class folk…” (Churchill 79). Instead of
the “joint workers for good” that Von Seydewitz emphasizes that all races must be Tunnell explains the
black race in words such as, “because her weaker brothers find no rest/ but wearied, labor in a cause
sublime” (lines 8-9). We see that this speaker in this poem cannot labor with “hands clasped” with the
white man because he has felt the oppression of hands chained by them. Another interesting element
about Tunnell’s poem is that it is not written in free verse that Churchill has noticed frequently occurred
in The Crisis but rather it is written in formal meter. I think the editor chose to use this poem in response
to Von Seydewitz purposefully because the metered form highlights sophisticated black mentality that
elevates the status of the black identity.
While some elements like primitivism, African themes, and free verse aren’t found in these two
poems I think the mere conversation of these poems by their bibliographic and linguistic codes
challenge the reader to take a new mental approach towards the Negro in the modern world.
Churchill, Suzanne W.; Bookie, Drew; Hall, Carey; Hardesty, Cameron. “Youth Culture in The Crisis and
Fire!!” The Journal of Modern Periodical Studies 1. 1 2010: 64-69. Article.
Von Seydewitz, Margaret. “Universal Brotherhood.” The Crisis. Mar 1914. Web.
Tunnell, Arthur. “On Segregation.” The Crisis. Mar 1914. Web.