THIS VERSE, COMPOSED BY DUNBAR-NELSON for the Associated Negro Press CA. 1920, was written in response to a popular, earlier poem by the Russian immigrant Elias Lieberman. In his original poem, Lieberman sought to write recent immigrants into the narrative of U.S. life by suggesting that Eastern European immigrants have as much of a claim to American freedoms as do native-born whites whose ancestors had come to America long ago.

Rather than contradict the message of Lieberman’s poem, Alice Dunbar-Nelson crafted a verse that she hoped to append to Lieberman’s original work. In her verse, Dunbar-Nelson insists that Black Americans and Indigenous peoples contributed to the rise of the U.S. republic and thus deserve the benefits of full membership in the body politic. The verse encapsulates both the pride she felt for her race and the optimism she maintained for the nation’s future in the closing lines, “I am proud of my past / I hold faith in my future / I am a Negro / I am an American.”

I am an American.
My father belongs to the Sons of the Revolution;
My mother, to the Colonial Dames.
One of my ancestors pitched tea overboard in Boston Harbor;
Another stood his ground with Warren;
Another hungered with Washington at Valley Forge.
My forefathers were America in the making:
They spoke in her council halls;
They died on her battle-fields;
They commanded her ships;
They cleared her forests.
Dawns reddened and paled.
Staunch hearts of mine beat fast at each new star
In the nation’s flag. Keen eyes of mine foresaw her greater glory:
The sweep of her seas,
The plenty of her plains,
The man-hives in her billion-wired cities.
Every drop of blood in me holds a heritage of patriotism.
I am proud of my past.
I am an American. I am an American. 

My father was an atom of dust,
My mother a straw in the wind,
To His Serene Majesty.
One of my ancestors died in the mines of Siberia;
Another was crippled for life by twenty blows of the knut;
Another was killed defending his home during the massacres.
The history of my ancestors is a trail of blood
To the palace-gate of the Great White Czar.
But then the dream came—
The dream of America.
In the light of the Liberty torch
The atom of dust became a man
And the straw in the wind became a woman
For the first time.
“See,” said my father, pointing to the flag that fluttered near,
“That flag of stars and stripes is yours;
It is the emblem of the promised land,
It means, my son, the hope of humanity.
Live for it—die for it!”
Under the open sky of my new country I swore to do so;
And every drop of blood in me will keep that vow.
I am proud of my future.
I am an American.

Below, please compose a response to Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s added verse to “I Am an American!” What verse would you add to the poem? How would you update the poem for the 21st century?