The Proletariat Speaks By Alice Dunbar-Nelson Summary

I chose the poem The Proletariat Speaks by Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson for my piece of Harlem Renaissance Art. There were several famous male black writers of this era and fewer known women. I had to dig to find more than a couple of poems by black women poets during this time. When I found this poem I was immediately awestruck by her ability. Her title choice, startling contrasts and theme spoke volumes about race and social class not only in the era she wrote but also today. Her title says the proletariat has something to say. The word proletariat is a term for the class of wage earners in a capitalist society, who’s only significant material value is their body, their power to labor and that of their offspring, also expected to toil for the benefit of the bourgeois. The title of her poem speaks to a class of people who are the “have-nots” who have something needing to be heard. She was speaking on behalf of the black people, in this case the wide difference between what one has and one desires.

She spins amazing oil paintings in my mind with each carefully crafted word. Whether she is referring to the velvet lawn or the acrid smells of rotting garbage, we can feel each opposing life. Her poem speaks to the injustice of race and class inequality. The vast wealth of the upper class white people in contrast to the inferior standards of living the black commoners must endure are worlds apart, yet she can imagine every little detail of the life she would love. It is ironic that the bourgeois are not able to do the same and have no desire to try with rare exceptions. Their money is made on the backs of these very people who they consider nothings. Dunbar-Nelson speaks of loving the lavish sights, smells and surroundings of what she could have never