Charles Reznikoff
The poem Negroes by Charles Reznikoff tells the tale of just one “negro,” rather than multiple as the title might suggest. However, upon reading the poem, it comes to realization that the title is plural because what happened to this one man has happened to many more. This one man is symbolic of what happened to many black people during the time period.
The poem is split into two parts, with one stanza in the first part and three stanzas in the second part. The first part traces a young girl noticing a hand across her window one night. She runs to tell her father what she saw and he and her brother run around the house to find the person. In very plain language, Reznikoff tells us that the “Negro” was hiding, begging for the (presumably white) men to not shoot him. The next part explains that the black man was dead from peritonitis, which is the inflammation of the tissue around the abdomen. The next two stanzas describe how the man was brought to jail for burglary and he was badly beaten. No one treated him because they said he wouldn’t die from a beating. When another doctor did finally see it, it was proven that he did die of his beating, just a few days later.
While this poem is written very narratively and straightforwardly, it resonates in the fact that it perfectly paints a picture of how black men were treated during the time period. The “Negro” of this story was never given a chance, by either the white man who caught him at his house, the jailer, or the doctors. Instead of shooting him, the white man decided to beat him to near death and then charge him for burglary, without actually knowing what the black man could have been doing.
I think the fact that Reznikoff made the title plural is very important, and shows how this one story isn’t actually defined to just one man. This story is relatable and symbolic of most black people during this time; receiving no justice, help, or second chances. This is shown in the final four lines, “The doctor who saw him first – on a Monday -/ did nothing for him/ and said that he would not die of his beating;/ bt he did die of it on Wednesday.” Reznikoff proves the apathy of the doctors, jailer, etc., by showing how the doctor most likely knew the black man would die yet left him anyway. The poem Negroes resonates as not only showing the evil done through beatings, but the evil done through not doing anything at all, as the doctor did.