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]

References

1. "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.