"The Black Man's Burden” is a poem written by H. T. Johnson in 1899. The poem was written in response to the racist propaganda in the form of poetry by writer Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden” (1897).
The poem focusses on the need for white people to acknowledge their own mistreatment of people of color throughout history, as a way of stopping them from translating this subjugation to other countries. The narrator calls out the obvious racism faced by people of color in the US, such as Native Americans and African Americans. Indeed, a sarcastic tone is used throughout to enunciate the concept that there is much more to burden the people of the US with before white people can move onto other countries.
This poem was praised, and Kipling’s poem also repudiated by famed writer, Mark Twain, who disagreed with the international imperialism that the US was demonstrating at the time. The poem also makes many references to the Spanish-American War (1898) and the Philippine-American War (1899).
