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My Reflections on: The Shroud of Color

© Nichel Anderson

Born in 1903, Countee Cullen was one of the prominent members of the Harlem Renaissance. Known for his unique way of expressing poetry - many admirers called him an essentially lyric poet. The Shroud of Color, published in the mid 1920's, is an excellent reflection on African Americans perception of themselves. My analysis of his poem stirred my soul to reflect on my own self-evaluation. When I was a little girl my color seemed to be labeled as the world perceive it to be: not as the utmost grandeur. I felt the need to hide my shade of color and longed for what the world was feeding me to become. My low self-esteem led me even to the dissatisfaction of my woolly hair, my eyes, and my lips. I had no confidence - I felt my skin color shroud me inward. I desperately wanted too disappear.

In, The Shroud of Color, Countee shares his inner most thoughts as he talks to his Lord. Countee declares his dark skin as a hindering effect of some cruel punishment. He wishes to die in order to escape this burden bestowed on him:

"Lord, being dark, I said, I cannot bear
The further touch of earth, the scented air;
Lord, being dark, fore-willed to that despair
My color shrouds me in, I am as dirt
Beneath my brother's heel; there is a hurt
In all the simple joys which to a child
Are sweet; they are contaminate, defiled
By truths of wrongs the childish vision fails
To see; too great a cost this birth entails."

Here Countee pleads to the heavens to make sense of his pain. The despair is so great he feels the need to shroud in the color that brings him such sorrow. Countee feels his existence is not what the world wants him to be, merely, his color hinders Countee's heart due to outer influences. Denying him to live as he was born to be - A man of color. The pondering of his soul trying to make sense of his life purpose, Countee questions his Lord, of what purpose for him being a man of color. A few passages later, he receives an answer from the heavens:

"And still I writhed and moaned, The curse, the curse,
Than animated death, and death be worse?
Dark child of sorrow, mine no less,
What art of mine can make thee see,
And play thy part? The key to all strange things