By these let all men know I am a man

1 By these let all men know I am a man,
and all things human are akin to me;
one blood I share with all the sons of men;
one mind directs, on spirit moves us all.

2 No shame I know of lesser breed or hue
but claim my birthright, said the Pongo man;
an heir to freedom and unmeasured lands
I join the hunt for lions' hides or game.

3 But one day cruel men from Europe's shores
to Africa for human cargoes came:
they roamed our forests with their guns and nets,
they caught or bought their fellow men as slaves.

4 Like souls who taste the miseries of hell
the slaves in chains lay in dark filthy holds
of storm-tossed ships that sailed for endless months
across Atlantic Ocean's thousand leagues.

5 The 'Middle Passage' claimed more than its share
of tortured captives driven to despair
who died beneath the cruel captor's whip
or sought their freedom in an ocean grave.

6 Uprooted from their homeland, Africa,
the sad survivors, hopeless exiles, came
to strike new roots in Caribbean Isles,
and working for a new and better life.

Source: CPWI Hymnal #543