Francis Ellen Watkins Harper 1825-1911
"Harper died on 22 February 1911, nine years before women gained the right to vote. Her funeral service was held at the Unitarian Church on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia" where she was a member. She had ties to the Unitarians going back to her young adult years when she worked as an abolitionist. The quotes are from UU Dictionary of Biography article on Harper by Janeen Grohsmeyer
http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/francesharper.html
"A pioneering journalist, author of fiction and poetry, and a professional lecturer, Frances Harper had a remarkable life. Active in abolitionism, suffrage, and the temperance movement, she lived long enough to see her efforts rewarded. She gets credit for introducing the tradition of African American protest poetry. Famous during her lifetime, Harper used her prestige and writings to fight racism and also make strong feminist statements."
Paul P. Rueben; PAL: Perspectives in American Literature - A Research and Reference Guide: Chapter 5: Late Nineteenth Century - Frances Ellen Watkins
Harper (1825-1911)
She wrote: "We want more soul, a higher cultivation of all spiritual faculties. We need more unselfishness, earnestness, and integrity. We need men and women whose hearts are the homes of high and lofty enthusiasm and a noble devotion to the cause of emancipation, who are ready and willing to lay time, talent, and money on the altar of universal freedom."
Bury Me In A Free Land
Make me a grave where'er you will,
In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill;
Make it among earth's humblest graves,
But not in a land where men are slaves.
I could not rest if around my grave
I heard the steps of a trembling slave;
His shadow above my silent tomb
Would make it a place of fearful gloom.
I could not rest if I heard the tread
Of a coffle gang to the shambles led,
And the mother's shriek of wild despair
Rise like a curse on the trembling air.
I could not sleep if I saw the lash
Drinking her blood at each fearful gash,
And I saw her babes torn from her breast,
Like trembling doves from their parent nest.
I'd shudder and start if I heard the bay
Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey,
And I heard the captive plead in vain
As they bound afresh his galling chain.
If I saw young girls from their mother's arms
Bartered and sold for their youthful charms,
My eye would flash with a mournful flame,
My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.
I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated might
Can rob no man of his dearest right;
My rest shall be calm in any grave
Where none can call his brother a slave.
I ask no monument, proud and high,
To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;
All that my yearning spirit craves,
Is bury me not in a land of slaves.
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