I Am the American Negro (collection)/Nicodemus Perry

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NICODEMUS PERRY
Walking pensively along
looking at the narrow sidewalk
Saturday afternoon in Reelton, Alabama,
thinking how his mother
while a young girl
working for Judge Stinson
bore a child that died
how his oldest sister
was known to be intimate
with the mayor's son
and how only last night
his youngest sister
coming home alone
was raped by three white men
and the sheriff
merely asked how much she got
Nicodemus Perry
was shot and fatally wounded
by several corner loiterers
who said something about "assault"
as he bumped smack into
a white woman.

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