Responses to Margaret Walker's "For My People"

A few responses from our contributors concerning Margaret Walker's "For My People."

Clarissa Richee writes that

By detailing the actions, attitudes and situations specific to common experiences of black Americans, Margaret Walker’s “For My People” presents a sense of recognition and admiration. Overall, Walker paints African American history as one of struggle. Each stanza works to examine a different era in the progression of that culture, exploring where it began, “singing their slaves songs,” as well as how it has progressed, “floundering in the dark of churches, and schools, and clubs.” She uses longs lists to encompass a wide variety of experiences and places, from “the maybe years of washing, ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending,” and the “sands of Alabama” to the “47th Street in Chicago…deceived and devoured by money-hungry glory-craving leeches."

Cindy Lyles writes that

Margaret Walker’s “For My People” celebrates the ideals of community and camaraderie by stringing together familiar scenes at the heart of African American culture. By detailing the actions, attitudes and situations specific to common experiences of black Americans, the poem lends this community a sense of recognition and admiration. Overall, Walker paints African American history as one of struggle. Each stanza works to examine a different era in the progression of that culture, exploring where it began, “singing their slaves songs,” as well as how it has progressed, “floundering in the dark of churches, and schools, and clubs.”

She uses long lists to encompass a wide variety of experiences and places, from “the maybe years of washing, ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending,” and the “sands of Alabama” to the “47th Street in Chicago…deceived and devoured by money-hungry glory-craving leeches.” In the final stanza, however, the poem takes an upward twist, as Walker writes “Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born,” ending the poem with the community looking forward to an era of peace and prosperity, where the old battles can finally be put to rest.

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Related: Margaret Walker Week