H. P. Lovecraft

On the Creation of Niggers

From a hectographed poem credited to “H. P. Lovecraft” in the Howard P. Lovecraft collection at Brown University Library, with manuscript date “1912” in an unknown hand. The hectograph is the only extant copy of the poem, and the attribution is frequently questioned but generally accepted as accurate.
(1912)

When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove’s fair image Man was shap’d at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next design’d;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to man,
Th’Olympian host conceiv’d a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Fill’d it with vice, and call’d the thing a NIGGER.