Flag Salute

This article is about the poem. For the American salute, see Bellamy salute.

"Flag Salute" is a poem written by Esther Popel about the lynching of George Armwood on October 18, 1933 in Princess Anne, Maryland.[1][2] It was first published in August 1934 in The Crisis[3] and later republished in its entirety on the cover of The Crisis in 1940.[1]

It juxtaposes the murder of Armwood with quotations from the Pledge of Allegiance.[4] The poem reflects that lynching in the United States had become a "ritual of interracial social control."[5]

  1. ^ a b "Flag Salute". The Crisis. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People: Cover. November 1940. Retrieved 27 April 2015.
  2. ^ Rice, Anne P. (October 9, 2008). Witnessing Lynching: American Writers Respond. Rutgers University Press. p. 282. ISBN 978-0813533308. Retrieved 27 April 2015.
  3. ^ West, Sandra L. (September 1, 2003). Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. Amazon Digital Services, Inc. p. 266. ISBN 9781438130170. Retrieved 27 April 2015.
  4. ^ Bracks, Lean'tin L; Smith, Jessie Carney (16 October 2014). Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era. Bowman and Little Field. p. 173. ISBN 9780810885431. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  5. ^ Selim, Yasser Fouad (2014). Who Defines Me: Negotiating Identity in Language and Literature. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 91. ISBN 978-1443859684. Retrieved 27 April 2015.