Nichols, Charles H., ed. Arna Bontemps–Langston Hughes
Letters, 1925–1967. New York: Paragon House,
1990.
Saint Mark’s Methodist Episcopal Church
One of the most prominent churches of HARLEM
during the Renaissance era. Located at 138th
Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, the church was
known for its formal services, high sacred music
performances, and grandly attired choir and
ministers.
It was there in 1908 that more than 50 nurses,
denied membership and professional privileges in
the racially exclusionary American Nurses Associ-
ation, established the National Association of Col-
ored Graduate Nurses.
Saint Peter Relates an Incident: Selected
PoemsJames Weldon Johnson(1935)
The last published collection of poems by JAMES
WELDONJOHNSON, the influential civil rights ac-
tivist and author of the intriguing novel AUTOBI-
OGRAPHY OF ANEX-COLOUREDMAN. The volume
included a small group of new works and a major-
ity of the poems published 18 years earlier in Fifty
Years and Other Poems.Johnson began work on the
title poem once he heard a startling report about
the segregated transportation provided to African-
American and white mothers who had lost sons in
World War I and were traveling to Europe to see
the graves of their children. Determined to
counter the narrow-mindedness of racism, he
penned a long, satirical poem that transformed the
biblical rapture into an innovative, modern-day
critique of racism. That work was published sepa-
rately in 1930 and then was included in the 1935
collection.
The title poem, “Saint Peter Relates an Inci-
dent of the Resurrection Day,” is divided into six
sections and totals some 161 lines. In the poem’s
organized set of four-line stanzas, Johnson provides
an intriguing glimpse of heaven and humanizes the
angels there through his suggestion that they, like
mortals, relish a good story. “Tell us a tale, Saint
Peter, they entreated; / And gathered close around
where he was seated.” The bearded saint, who
“fumbled with his keys” for inspiration before be-
ginning the tale, then launches into a vivid tale of
the Resurrection morning. The archangel Gabriel
sounds his horn, and the world below begins to
give up the dead: “A shudder shook the world, and
gaping graves / Gave up their dead. / Out from the
parted waves / Came the prisoners of old ocean.
The dead belonging / To every land and clime
came thronging.” The process seems to be in keep-
ing with the script outlined in the Bible until a
“special order” is issued “within the American bor-
der.” That instruction requires that veterans of all
American wars, including the Civil War, “Mexican,
Spanish, Haitian,” the “Trustees of the patriotism
of the nation,” and the “Confederate Veterans and
the Ku-Klux Klan” assemble themselves on the
edge of the Potomac River to “escort the unknown
soldier up to heaven.”
The patriots and veterans are responsible for
emancipating the unknown soldier from his grave,
and they work “with a will /... toiled with a pick,
with crowbar, and with drill / To cleave a breach”
wide enough to accommodate the “towering form”
that eventually “loomed big and bigger.” They are
stunned however, to see that the man they have
released is African American and they “all fell
back aghast.” The soldier represents legions of vet-
erans of color, many of whom have long remained
unacknowledged despite their sacrifices in wars
dating back to the French and Indian Wars of the
18th century to World War I. While his audience
grapples with its racist reaction and disbelief, he
celebrates his new destination and the long-
awaited experience of glory. The “unknown soldier,
dust-stained and begrimed” begins his upward
journey and soon becomes a “tall, black soldier-
angel” whose “clear and strong” song resonates
throughout heaven “until heaven took up the
song.” The satisfying conclusion, which is rooted in
the promise of eventual redemption and triumph
over one’s persecutors and enemies, is made more
rich by the response of the angelic host. “The tale
was done,” reports the narrator, “The angelic hosts
dispersed, / but not till after / There ran through
heaven / Something that quivered / twixt tears and
laughter.”
The conclusion of “Saint Peter Relates” has
been used to characterize the poem as a humorous
indictment of racism. Certainly, the reaction seems
directed away from the stalwart and long-sufferingSaint Peter Relates an Incident: Selected Poems 463