The Full Text of “The Black Man's Burden”
1Pile on the Black Man’s Burden,
2'Tis nearest at your door;
3Why heed long bleeding Cuba
4Or dark Hawaii’s shore?
5Halt ye your fearless armies
6Which menace feeble folks,
7Who fight with clubs and arrows
8And brook your rifles' smoke.
9Pile on the Black Man’s Burden,
10His wail with laughter drown,
11You’ve sealed the Red Man’s problem
12And will take up the Brown.
13In vain ye seek to end it
14With bullets, blood or death—
15Better by far defend it
16With honor’s holy breath.
17Pile on the Black Man's Burden,
18His back is broad though sore;
19What though the weight oppress him,
20He's borne the like before.
21Your Jim-crow laws and customs,
22And fiendish midnight deed,
23Though winked at by the nation,
24Will some day trouble breed.
25Pile on the Black Man's Burden,
26At length 'twill heaven pierce;
27Then on you or your children
28Will reign God's judgments fierce.
29Your battleships and armies
30May weaker ones appall,
31But God Almighty's justice
32They'll not disturb at all.
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“The Black Man's Burden” Introduction
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The clergyman H. T. Johnson wrote "The Black Man's Burden" in 1899 as a response to Rudyard Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden," which was published the same year. Kipling's poem makes the racist argument that white people have a moral responsibility to conquer and dominate nonwhite nations. With this in mind, the speaker of "The Black Man's Burden" points out that subjugating other nonwhite populations will only add to the American history of oppression and racism. All in all, then, the poem critiques imperialist policies based on tyranny and oppression, connecting this worldview to the continued subjection of Black people in the U.S.
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“The Black Man's Burden” Summary
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The speaker begins by sarcastically suggesting that the U.S. go ahead and add to the racism and oppression that Black people already face, an issue that is actually most apparent within the country itself rather than abroad. Indeed, since this problem is still so alive right here in the U.S., the speaker wonders why the country would bother turning its attention to suffering nations like Cuba or faraway places like Hawaii. The speaker urges U.S. leaders to stop military forces abroad, which are accustomed to bullying and oppressing disenfranchised people who are only capable of defending themselves using basic weapons that are no match for the U.S.'s heavy artillery.
The speaker once again sarcastically suggests that the U.S. add to the oppression of Black people, telling U.S. leaders in a tongue-in-cheek way to block out the sound of Black people's suffering with unconcerned laughter. What's more, the speaker indicates that the country might as well continue to oppress other nonwhite people as a way of helping them, sarcastically saying that the nation has already "helped" the Native Americans from whom it stole land. And now, the speaker says, the nation wants to "help" other people of color in the same way: by oppressing them and dominating their land. The speaker says that attempts to end the supposed suffering faced by nonwhite peoples through violence and bloodshed are pointless. The speaker continues that the U.S. is better off "helping" such people with honor and compassion.
Once again, the speaker sarcastically urges the U.S. to add to the oppression of Black people, this time noting that Black people are strong and resilient even though it's painful to endure so much hate and racism. Even though the weight of this racism puts an enormous strain on Black people, the speaker says, Black Americans are used to this kind of hardship and have become very resilient. With this in mind, the speaker references racist segregation policies (known as Jim Crow laws) before going on to hint at the terrible history of enslavers raping the Black people they enslaved—a practice that the nation as a whole never fully acknowledges even though everybody knows this took place frequently during the time of slavery. All of this, the speaker asserts, will someday create trouble for the powerful white people who rule the nation.
The speaker then repeats the sarcastic suggestion that the U.S. should add to the oppression of Black people. The speaker metaphorically suggests that racism and oppression will pile up on the backs of Black people and that this pile will someday become so high that it reaches heaven, at which point the powerful white racists and their loved ones will have to face the wrath of God. And although these racists are normally able to use militaristic force to dominate vulnerable populations, God's ability to punish bigots for their racist and oppressive behavior cannot be stopped by anything.
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“The Black Man's Burden” Themes
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Racism and Imperialism
“The Black Man’s Burden” is a response to an 1899 poem by Rudyard Kipling called “The White Man’s Burden,” which argued that it was white people’s moral responsibility to force a so-called civilized lifestyle upon nonwhite populations. Kipling’s poem was ultimately based on the racist, ignorant belief that nonwhite people need to be saved from themselves. Kipling, unfortunately, wasn’t alone in this thinking; at the end of the 19th century, many people believed the United States should assert its influence abroad by conquering certain nonwhite countries.
The speaker of “The Black Man’s Burden” sarcastically suggests that the country shouldn’t bother doing this when it could instead simply continue to oppress its own Black citizens. This tongue-in-cheek suggestion highlights the fact that the United States has already oppressed its fair share of nonwhite people. This, in turn, means that any new expansion of power will only add to the country’s history of racist governing—a history that has placed a great “burden” (or strain) on Black people in America.
Within this framework, the “The Black Man’s Burden” invites readers to consider the fact that the last thing the United States needs is a new population to oppress. After all, the country has already massacred and subjugated Native American people, in addition to having enslaved, tortured, and persecuted Black people.
To that end, the speaker points out that the subjection of Black people is “nearest at [the country’s] door”—meaning that it is the most immediate example of the country’s racist mindset, which is ultimately what fuels the imperialist desire to dominate nonwhite countries (imperialism, simply put, is the policy of overtaking another country with diplomatic or militaristic force).
When it comes down to it, the poem argues that the mere idea that imperialism is a “burden” for white people is problematic because it attempts to legitimize oppression. If white governments see domination as some kind of moral responsibility, it’s easier for them to justify the blatantly racist act of taking over nonwhite nations and subjugating their citizens. This is why the speaker assumes such a sarcastic tone when talking about how the United States has supposedly helped Black people and Native Americans, since it’s widely known that the country has done terrible things to both groups.
In keeping with this, the poem implicitly asks the following question: if the United States exerts influence over nonwhite people to supposedly help them, then why are Black people still suffering so much in the United States? The answer, of course, is that this exertion of power isn’t, in the end, intended to help anyone but the self-serving white people who are unwilling to admit their own racism. And it is the struggle of dealing with this self-congratulatory form of racism that is, the poem implies, “the Black man’s burden.”
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Religion and Justice
The speaker turns to religion to suggest that there will be consequences for people who oppress Black Americans and other nonwhite populations. Although people of color might not be able to defend themselves from the tyrannical power of the U.S., the speaker contends that God will eventually bring judgment down upon racists. In turn, the speaker upholds that people who misuse their power will ultimately suffer as a result of their immoral behavior.
The speaker makes it clear that Black and other nonwhite people are often forced to endure racism without being able to defend themselves. To illustrate this imbalance of power, the speaker notes that the U.S. is all too eager to “menace feeble folks” with heavy weaponry that far outmatches anything these people could possibly defend themselves against. Furthermore, the speaker references the fact that Black Americans have suffered the weight oppression for generations. In both cases, readers are invited to consider the extent to which the country mistreats disenfranchised people without worrying about retaliation.
This, however, doesn’t mean that such despicable treatment will go unpunished forever. Rather, the speaker asserts that God will someday smite racists, saying that even the most powerful “battleships and armies” won’t stand a chance against the wrath of “God Almighty’s justice.”
In this way, the speaker uses religious faith to argue that there will be serious consequences for people who practice immoral—which is to say racist and tyrannical—behavior. Accordingly, if the U.S. continues to add to the “Black Man’s Burden” by subjugating other nonwhite populations, the country’s racist leaders will eventually discover that they aren’t quite as powerful or unstoppable as they’d like to think.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Black Man's Burden”
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Lines 1-2
Pile on the Black Man’s Burden,
'Tis nearest at your door;The speaker begins with a somewhat ambiguous opening phrase: "Pile on the Black Man's Burden." This is an abrupt way to start the poem, especially since the line is end-stopped, giving it a terse, declarative sound. Because this line sounds so decisive, it almost functions like a thesis statement of sorts, one that tells readers to add to the hardships that Black people already face in the U.S.
As the poem progresses, it will become increasingly clear that the speaker is actually addressing the powerful white leaders of the U.S., ultimately doing this as a way of highlighting the racism that lies behind certain ways of governing. At this point, however, it's not yet clear why, exactly, the speaker wants to "pile on" the hardships of Black people.
Nevertheless, the speaker continues in line 2 to point out that the oppression of Black people is the "nearest" problem, meaning that it is quite immediate because it's a constant, everyday issue in the U.S. In this way, the speaker begins the poem by calling attention to the fact that Black people in the U.S. are forced to deal with racism and intense hardship. The speaker implies that this is something that the country (or the government, rather) takes for granted and even overlooks, which is why the speaker argues throughout the poem that any new acts of oppression will simply add to the country's ongoing history of racism. In other words, the nation's racist white leaders don't need to look far to find deep-seated issues of racism and turmoil, since these issues exist in a major way in the U.S.
The phrase "the Black Man's Burden" is an allusion to a poem by Rudyard Kipling called "The White Man's Burden." In this poem, Kipling makes the racist argument that the U.S. should embrace imperialism, which is the policy of conquering other nations using diplomatic or militaristic force—a policy historically enacted by powerful white governments to oppress nonwhite populations. Kipling's poem maintains that the U.S. has a moral duty to introduce a so-called civilized lifestyle to nonwhite people. More specifically, Kipling wanted the U.S. to colonize the Philippines, a viewpoint connected to the onset of the American-Philippine War of 1899.
By using the phrase "the Black man's burden," the speaker of this poem makes a pointed reference to Kipling's problematic argument, essentially suggesting in an ironic, sarcastic way that the country might as well take its racist, imperialist foreign policies and add them to the oppression of Black people in America.
These first two lines also establish the poem's use of iambic trimeter. A line of iambic trimeter includes three iambs, which are metrical feet made up of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. However, the odd-numbered lines (which are also the non-rhyming lines) include feminine endings, which means they have an extra unstressed syllable that comes after the final stressed syllable. As such, the first two lines look like this:
Pile on the Black Man's Burden.
'Tis nearest at your door;This meter perfectly matches the meter found in Kipling's "The White Man's Burden," providing readers with yet another indication that this poem is a direct response to Kipling's.
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Lines 3-4
Why heed long bleeding Cuba
Or dark Hawaii’s shore?
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Lines 5-8
Halt ye your fearless armies
Which menace feeble folks,
Who fight with clubs and arrows
And brook your rifles' smoke. -
Lines 9-12
Pile on the Black Man’s Burden,
His wail with laughter drown,
You’ve sealed the Red Man’s problem
And will take up the Brown. -
Lines 13-16
In vain ye seek to end it
With bullets, blood or death—
Better by far defend it
With honor’s holy breath. -
Lines 17-20
Pile on the Black Man's Burden,
His back is broad though sore;
What though the weight oppress him,
He's borne the like before. -
Lines 21-24
Your Jim-crow laws and customs,
And fiendish midnight deed,
Though winked at by the nation,
Will some day trouble breed. -
Lines 25-28
Pile on the Black Man's Burden,
At length 'twill heaven pierce;
Then on you or your children
Will reign God's judgments fierce. -
Lines 29-32
Your battleships and armies
May weaker ones appall,
But God Almighty's justice
They'll not disturb at all.
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“The Black Man's Burden” Symbols
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The Burden
Throughout the poem, the speaker mentions a "burden." Simply put, this represents the racism and oppression that Black people face in the United States. Because the speaker says, "Pile on the Black Man's Burden," the "burden" itself is presented as something that builds up over time. This idea becomes even more evident in the third stanza, when the speaker implies that Black people carry the weight of oppression on their backs. More specifically, the speaker implies in the final stanza that these injustices will someday stack up so high that they will "pierce" the heavens.
In turn, the poem presents the burden of racism as something that accumulates over time, constantly getting bigger and bigger. In this sense, the idea of adding to "the Black Man's Burden" further symbolizes that the effects of racism and oppression don't simply fade away. Rather, they build up, increasing incrementally and pressing down on people who are forced to deal with an entire history of oppression.
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“The Black Man's Burden” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
There are a number of alliterative moments that appear throughout the poem. The speaker tends to use short bursts of alliteration, connecting words with one another while also drawing extra attention to these words. For instance, the refrain contains the alliterative /b/ sound, which repeats twice:
Pile on the Black Man's Burden
This repetition of the /b/ sound links the words "Black" and "Burden," both of which are central to the line. Alliteration draws attention to the idea that Black Americans are forced to endure the terrible weight of racism and oppression. The alliteration here also makes the line come across as especially musical. This, in turn, strengthens the use of this line as the poem's refrain, giving it a memorable, catchy sound.
For another example, consider the way that the /b/ and /d/ sounds weave through one another in lines 14 and 15:
With bullets, blood or death–
Better by far defend itThis is a very alliterative line, and the way the speaker alternates between the bold /b/ and /d/ sounds is powerful—perhaps even evoking the violent pummeling of "bullets." Again, the speaker's use of alliteration spotlights certain words while also increasing the poem's intensity in moments.
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Allusion
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Assonance
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Consonance
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Refrain
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End-Stopped Line
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Irony
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Rhetorical Question
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Metaphor
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“The Black Man's Burden” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Pile
- Burden
- 'Tis
- Heed
- Halt
- Ye
- Feeble
- Brook
- Wail
- Sealed
- Brown
- Vain
- Seek
- Broad
- Borne
- Jim Crow laws
- Fiendish midnight deed
- 'Twill
- Reign
- Appall
Pile-
To add to something.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Black Man's Burden”
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Form
"The Black Man's Burden" is a 32-line poem organized into four octaves, which are stanzas made up of eight lines. These can be further broken down into pairs of quatrains, or four-line stanzas. The second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme with each other, as do the sixth and eighth lines. The poem's use of meter rarely varies. Altogether, the poem is self-assured and steady, creating the sense of a bold and confident speaker with a clear, straightforward message.
All of this also aligns with the predictability found in Rudyard Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden," since "The Black Man's Burden" mimics the form of Kipling's poem (although Kipling's poem has seven stanzas instead of four). Like "The White Man's Burden," each stanza begins with a refrain, as the speaker says, "Pile on the Black Man's Burden." This not only matches the style of Kipling's poem, but also functions as an allusion to "The White Man's Burden," ultimately alerting readers to the fact that this is a direct response to Kipling.
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Meter
Like Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden," the poem is primarily written in iambic trimeter. This means that each line has three iambs—a.k.a. metrical feet made up of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (da-DUM). Line 2 is a perfect example of iambic trimeter:
'Tis near- | est at | your door
"The Black Man's Burden" features a unique variation on this meter, however. Like "The White Man's Burden," the poem's odd-numbered lines (which are also the non-rhyming lines) include feminine endings. This means that there is an extra unstressed syllable at the very end of the line. For example, consider the first line:
Pile on | the Black | Man's Burden
The third foot of this line contains three syllables: "Man's Burden." The fact that the final syllable, "den," is unstressed is what makes this a feminine ending. In turn, the lines with feminine endings destabilize the poem's overall sound, since readers most likely expect each line to end on the stressed syllable of an iamb. The feminine ending, though, strays from this convention and makes the line sound as if it's off-kilter.
On the whole, the poem's use of iambic trimeter and feminine endings is little more than a nod to Kipling's poem, as the speaker imitates the style and pacing of "The White Man's Burden." Still, though, the use of this meter adds a certain sense of predictability to the poem, even if the use of feminine endings makes the rhythm sound less ordinary than it might otherwise seem.
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Rhyme Scheme
The poem follows a rhyme scheme in which each stanza's second and fourth lines rhyme, as do its sixth and eighth lines. As such, each stanza's rhyme scheme can be mapped out like this:
ABCBDEFE
Practically speaking, this means that all the even-numbered lines in "The Black Man's Burden" end with some kind of rhyme, whereas all the odd-numbered lines (the lines with feminine endings) do not.
Like many of the stylistic elements of "The Black Man's Burden," this rhyme scheme is a reflection of Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden," which features the exact same rhyme scheme. In both cases, these rhymes create a feeling of predictability and consistency while also giving the lines a musical sound. This is especially noticeable in "The Black Man's Burden" because the sing-songy rhyme scheme ends up accentuating the speaker's sarcastic, ironic tone.
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“The Black Man's Burden” Speaker
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The speaker of "The Black Man's Burden" uses sarcasm and irony to highlight the racism and oppression that runs rampant throughout the U.S. As the poem progresses, though, the speaker begins to speak more straightforwardly, ultimately critiquing the U.S. for using its unchecked power to dominate vulnerable communities of color. In the poem's final stanza, the speaker warns powerful racists that their immoral behavior will be punished by God.
Because the poem's title and refrain specifically references the fact that Black Americans face racism and subjugation on a daily basis, it seems likely that the speaker is a Black American, though there's nothing else in the poem that indicates anything about the speaker's identity. Given that "The Black Man's Burden" is a direct response to Rudyard Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden," it's also arguable that these words should be attributed to H. T. Johnson himself, who was indeed Black and also a clergyman. That said, the lack of information about the speaker in the poem itself implies that the poem's anti-racist message is the most important thing here, rather than the person delivering that message.
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“The Black Man's Burden” Setting
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The poem takes place in the United States, as made clear by the fact that the issues the speaker raises in have to do with the U.S. government's policies in the late 1800s. The speaker draws a comparison between the country's historical oppression (and enslavement) of Black people and the country's efforts to forcefully dominate other nonwhite populations.
Also note that the poem was written in 1899, when the U.S. was first becoming involved in the Philippine-American War. The U.S. attempted to secure control over the Philippines in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War.
Although the poem itself doesn't explicitly name check either of these conflicts (or even, for that matter, the Philippines,) the fact that the poem is a response to Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" makes it quite clear that it is set against this backdrop, since Kipling's poem functioned as an open call for the U.S. to conquer the Philippines.
With this political issue in mind, the speaker of "The Black Man's Burden" also points out that the U.S. is already in the midst of oppressing Black Americans, since the racist, segregationist policies of the Jim Crow era were at that time still very much in effect. In this way, the poem is set during a period in which the country's oppressive and racist governmental policies were at work both domestically and abroad.
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Literary and Historical Context of “The Black Man's Burden”
Literary Context
"The Black Man's Burden" has a very specific literary context because it was written as a response to a poem by Rudyard Kipling called "The White Man's Burden." Kipling's poem urged the U.S. to conquer and take control of the Philippines, arguing that this was a moral duty white people should take upon themselves.
In response, a number of people ridiculed and parodied this blatantly racist, self-serving viewpoint. Magazines published cartoons mocking the backward idea that white people should practice imperialism for the good of nonwhite populations, and writers penned essays and scathing poetic imitations denouncing Kipling's argument. The famous American writer Mark Twain even wrote an essay called "To the One Sitting in Darkness" that criticized U.S. imperialism and was seen as a response to "The White Man's Burden."
Needless to say, H. T. Johnson's "The Black Man's Burden" was among the many responses to Kipling's poem. It was published in 1899—the same year as "The White Man's Burden"—and appeared in the Christian Recorder, a magazine run by the African Methodist Episcopal Church. At the time, H. T. Johnson was serving as the editor of the Christian Recorder, as this post was often filled by clergymen from the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
This specific poem is not to be confused with others that bear the same or similar names; there is, for example, a poem called "The Black Man's Burden" by Lulu Baxter Guy and another poem called "The Brown Man's Burden" by Henry Labouchère. Like Johnson, both poets mock Kipling as a way of renouncing the racism that comes along with imperialism. That these three poems are all so similar is a testament to just how many responses were published after Kipling wrote "The White Man's Burden."
In a broader literary sense, "The Black Man's Burden" was published roughly 10 years before the Modernist period. At the very end of the 1800s, literature was largely overtaken by the shift from Romanticism to Realism. In some ways, "The Black Man's Burden" illustrates this shift simply because it straightforwardly focuses on a political issue rather than exploring the beauty and appreciation of nature that defined Romanticism.
However, this poem also exists outside the scope of Realism, which is interested mainly in the accurate portrayal of everyday life. "The Black Man's Burden," on the other hand, has the specific political goal of challenging racism, ultimately making it seem more like a precursor to the protest poetry of the 20th century than anything else.
Historical Context
At the very end of the 19th century, the U.S. asserted itself over a number of areas abroad in order to expand its foreign influence. This was largely the result of the Spanish-American War, which began in 1898 in Cuba. At the time, Cuba was controlled by Spain, but by the end of the conflict (which ended within four months), the U.S. gained control of Cuba, which is why the speaker of "The Black Man's Burden" references the country's interest in Cuba.
Another result of the Spanish-American War was that the U.S. began to occupy the Philippines in August 1898, since the islands were, before the Spanish-American War, controlled by Spain. This, however, was not a seamless transition, since the Philippines had been undergoing a revolution aimed at Filipino independence since 1896, though neither Spain nor the U.S. recognized this independence. When the U.S. tried to assert its influence over the Filipino population in 1899, it led to a three-year conflict known as the Philippine-American War.
This is the historical backdrop for Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" and, in turn, for Johnson's response. Kipling's poem urged the U.S. to unabashedly take up the mantel of imperialism by conquering and "civilizing" the Filipino population. Meanwhile, the U.S. was still enforcing the racist segregation laws known as Jim Crow laws, and the country's Black population was still feeling the harsh after-effects of slavery (which had only ended roughly three decades earlier).
It is in this political and cultural climate, then, that the speaker of "The Black Man's Burden" calls attention to the nation's racism, ultimately pointing out that the country's efforts to subjugate the Filipino population are little more than an extension of the racist behavior to which it has subjected Black Americans for more than 100 years.
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More “The Black Man's Burden” Resources
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External Resources
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The Philippine-American War — For more information about the circumstances that prompted Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" and, thus, Johnson's "The Black Man's Burden," read this entry on the Philippine-American War.
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"The White Man's Burden" — For a more in-depth look at the poem that prompted the writing of "The Black Man's Burden," check out our guide of Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden."
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Mark Twain's Response — H. T. Johnson wasn't the only writer to respond to Rudyard Kipling's racist poem, "The White Man's Burden." Take a look, for instance, at Mark Twain's essay "To the Person Sitting in Darkness," which also addresses the racist thinking that lies behind imperialism.
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A Portrait of Johnson — Check out this portrait of H. T. Johnson, which is housed at the Library of Congress.
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The Christian Recorder — For more information about the publication that first published "The Black Man's Burden," read this brief overview of The Christian Recorder, which H. T. Johnson edited from 1893 to 1902.
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