“A Black Wedding Song” by Gwendolyn Brooks is a brief, blessing‑like lyric that frames Black marital love as an act of resistance and a form of spiritual weaponry in a hostile world. Drawing on Brooks’s broader commitment to Black consciousness and affirmation of Black value, the poem addresses a Black couple directly, offering them both warning and benediction. Love here is not sentimental escape but a “weapon‑song” raised “over the deviltries and the death,” insisting that Black love is forged in the context of racism, poverty, and historical violence, and yet remains precious and enduring.
This love is a rich cry over
the deviltries and the death.
A weapon-song. Keep it strong.
Keep it strong.
Keep it logic and magic and lightning and muscle.
Strong hand in strong hand, stride to
the Assault that is promised you (knowing
no armor assaults a pudding or a mush.)
Here is your Wedding Day.
Here is your launch.
Come to your Wedding Song.
For you
I wish the kindness that romps or sorrows along.
Or kneels.
I wish you the daily forgiveness of each other.
For war comes in from the World
and puzzles a darling duet–
tangles tongues,
tears hearts, mashes minds;
there will be the need to forgive.
I wish you jewels of Black love.
Come to your Wedding Song.
Featured image: The Ebony Bridal—Wedding Ceremony in the Cabin by Frank Leslie’s was retrieved from https://connect.virginiamemory.com/virginia-untold/photos/44
