Resources for Studying George Moses Horton

PRAISE OF CREATION.

 

Creation fires my tongue!

   Nature, thy anthems raise,

And spread the universal song  

   Of thy Creator's praise!

 

When each revolving wheel  

   Assumed its sphere sublime,  

Submissive Earth then heard the peal,  

   And struck the march of time.

 

The march in Heaven begun,  

   And splendor filled the skies,  

When Wisdom bade the morning Sun  

   With joy from chaos rise.

 

The angels heard the tune  

   Throughout creation ring;  

They seized their golden harps as soon  

   And touched on every string.

 

When time and space were young,  

   And music rolled along--  

The morning stars together sung,  

   And Heaven was drown'd in song.

--George Moses Horton, from The Hope of Liberty, Raleigh, NC: J. Gales and Son, 1829.  (See below for URL.) This shortened version of the poem was included by Lydia Maria Child in The Freedmen's Book, Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865.

Poems

The Hope of Liberty.  Containing a Number of Poetical Pieces.  http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/horton/menu.html (This is the 1829 book, complete with the opening Explanation which sets out the scheme of using profits from the book to purchase Horton's freedom so that he might emigrate to Liberia.)

The Poetical Works of George M. Horton: The Colored Bard of North Carolina: To Which is Prefixed the Life of the Author, Written by Himself  http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/hortonpoem/hortonpoem.html  (This is the 1845 book, which contains Horton's autobiography.  It is part of the Documenting the American South project.)

Naked Genius, Horton's 1865 book, does not seem to be available on the World Wide Web, but it is included in the Chadwyck-Healey American Poetry database, which is part of the NCLive collection.

"Horton's Poetry," from the George Moses Horton Society site  http://www.unc.edu/horton/poetry.htm  (Eleven poems in a very reader-friendly format.)

"Poems by George Moses Horton"  From The Black Bard of North Carolina: George Moses Horton and His Poetry, edited by Joan Sherman. Copyright 1997, The University of North Carolina Press.  http://www.ibiblio.org/uncpress/horton/poems.html  (The poems are among those linked to the Horton Society site, but there is also a link to a substantial piece from Sherman's book.)

Good Morals:  Born Again Black Poetry  (George Moses Horton) http://www.goodmorals.org/poetry/index.asp?poetlist=List-Horton.htm  The poems included here, all with religious themes, are not the ones most commonly reproduced.

"Selected Poetry of George Moses Horton (1797?-ca. 1880)."  Representative Poetry Online.  Department of English, University of Toronto. (Includes three poems.) http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poet166.html 

George Moses Horton:  Documentary Resources Available at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  A number of Horton's manuscripts are online and may be viewed here.  http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/exhibits/horton/index.html 

Poetry Landmark: George Moses Horton's hometown in Chatham County, NC  This Academy of American Poets site also has three of Horton's poems.

Secondary Sources

George Moses Horton Society for the Study of African American Poetry. http://www.unc.edu/horton/research.htm 

Bibliography compiled by the George Moses Horton Society.  http://www.unc.edu/horton/bibliographyrevised.htm 

"George Moses Horton (ca. 1797 - ca. 1883)" Slavery and the Making of the University.  Manuscripts Dept., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/exhibits/slavery/horton.html   This page gives easy access to images (and transcribed texts) of Horton's letters to Horace Greeley , David Swaim, and (through Swaim) "Mr. Garrison," the editor of a Boston newspaper.

GEORGE MOSES HORTON, Historic Poet Laureate of Chatham County, North Carolina, ca. 1797?-1883. Besides providing information about Horton, this site records a project of the Chatham Arts Council that celebrated Horton.) http://www.chathamarts.org/horton/  See also The "George Moses Horton Project: Celebrating a Triumph of Literacy." Learn NC.  http://www.learnnc.org/articles/horton0403-1 

George Moses Horton, 1798?-ca.1880.  (Richard Walser's biography of Horton, extracted from the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography.) http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/hortonlife/bio.html 

Slave honored as historic North Carolina poet.  (This is a rather interesting article from a Georgia newspaper.) http://augustachronicle.com/stories/052797/fea_slavepoet.html 

Mostly Menfolk and a Woman or Two:  a virtual exhibit of 18th and 19th century African-American literature  (Site celebrates several African American writers with North Carolina ties.)  http://www.ibiblio.org/afam_authors/homepage.html 

University Names Building After a Local Slave and Poet This is an NPR report on action by UNC-CH to name a dormitory for George Moses Horton. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5313010)

The SSSL: Bibliography has a useful listing of journal articles on Horton (http://www.missq.msstate.edu/sssl/view.php?wid=290) An article by Reginald H. Pitts ("`Let Us Desert This Friendless Place': George Moses Horton in Philadelphia--1866"
Journal of Negro History, 80 [Fall 1995], 145-156) is particularly interesting because it makes a case for a very different view of the end of Horton's life. The article is available through Academic Search Premier, which North Carolina public library patrons can reach through NC LIVE.

Lesson Plans

The ninth edition of the Anthology of American Literature, ed. George McMichael, James S. Leonard, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, David Bradley, Dana D. Nelson, and Joseph Csicsila, includes George Moses Horton on pp. 1057-64. There is an appropriate introduction, and seven poems are reproduced, with representation from all three of Horton's books. The book is published by Pearson/Prentice Hall.

North Carolina Freedom Monument Project:  George Moses Horton Lesson Plan. (This is a .pdf file with a sketch of Horton's life, several poems, activities, etc.)  http://www.ncfmp.org/curriculum/pdf/georgemoseshorton.pdf

Acrostic Poems: All About Me and My Favorite Things   http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=309 Horton isn't mentioned, but teachers who want to have students try writing acrostic poems of their own may find some useful ideas here. The "Acrostic Poem interactive" (http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/acrostic/ )feature  is particularly nice. Several of Horton's own acrostics are available as part of George Moses Horton: Original Documents from the Manuscripts Department at http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/exhibits/horton/mssgmh.html.

Please report broken links to Rebecca Wall at Winston-Salem State University.

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