Race

Elizabeth Alexander is a professor, poet, literary critic, memoirist, and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation president. Her poem “Race” comes from Antebellum Dream Book (2001), a critically acclaimed poetry collection in which Alexander examines Black history, Black cultural figures like Mohamad Ali, the relationship between place and identity, and varied topics such as motherhood.

During the 1960s, political and cultural figures called for Black literature that was more responsive to Black Americans in the midst of liberation. Alexander belongs to the next generation of poets who answered that call. Like her peers Rita Dove, Toi Derricotte, and Natasha Trethewey, Alexander complicates the representation of Black identity by being more attentive to gender and the contested nature of Black history.

In “Race,” Alexander’s speaker recounts a family story about a great-uncle who passed as white after moving to Oregon, while his siblings maintained a Black identity when they moved to Harlem, New York. The speaker struggles to understand what the poem itself can definitively say about racial identity.

Poet Biography

Elizabeth Alexander was born in Harlem, New York, in 1962. Her parents were both highly accomplished people who broke racial barriers during the 1960s and 1970s. Her father served in the administrations of three presidents, while her mother taught Black Studies as a university professor. As a girl, Alexander lived in Washington, DC, and was an eyewitness to important historical events of the Civil Rights Movement. Her family background and early experiences attuned her to the importance of politics and history. Alexander attended elite educational institutions, including the Sidwell Friends School for her primary education, Yale University for her undergraduate degree, and Boston University for her master’s in poetry. During her doctoral studies, Alexander published The Venus Hottentot (1990), a poetry collection with works that focus on Black popular culture, history, and gender. Alexander completed her doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in 1992.

From there, Alexander exceled as a university professor, a literary scholar, and a poet. Alexander has taught at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Harvard University, and Columbia University. Among the 15 works she has written or coauthored are the poetry collection American Sublime (2006) and the memoir The Light of the World  (2015), both of which were Pulitzer Prize finalists in their respective genres. Alexander recited her poem “Praise Song for the Day” at the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. The poem is a meditation on the history and ancestors who made Obama’s election possible. Her reading at this historic event brought her national attention. Her most recent work is The Trayvon Generation (2022), a multi-genre work in which she examines Black resilience and creativity despite the persistence of racial violence.

Poem Text

Alexander, Elizabeth. “Race.” 2019. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

In the first stanza, the speaker describes Great-Uncle Paul, a white-presenting Black man who leaves the family’s hometown in Tuskegee, Alabama, to make a new life in Oregon, where he works as a forester. He ceases to be Black except in the company of family members, who undergo their own transformations when they migrate to New York City. On the West Coast, Paul is white and chooses a white wife. His siblings choose Black spouses and go to great effort to make sure people know that they are Black. They don’t question Paul’s choices. They simply think of him as their brother. This is an old tale that people sometimes tell and sometimes keep secret.

Using third-person, the speaker imagines in the second stanza what it would take for someone like Great-Uncle Paul to be a heroic Black ancestor. The poet pictures Paul working in an Oregon forest as his wife, mystified by who he really is, watches him. She can see he is hiding something from her, but she can’t figure out what it is.

In the third stanza, the speaker reveals an alternate ending to the story from the first stanza. This ending is one people may not like as much because it isn’t a clear-cut one that lends itself to what people expect to find in a poem. Paul plans a visit but asks that his siblings not bring their Black spouses. He fears that his wife will discover that he is passing as white. His siblings refuse to help him continue his charade. Like him, they choose their spouses over biological family. It is hard to imagine how race had such power over this family, but what makes a family a family is mysterious as well. Race must have power as a concept because here the poet is, spending an entire poem sharing the family’s story about race.