From the National Day Calendar website:

Black Poetry Day on October 17th honors past and present black poets. The day also commemorates the birth of the first published black poet in the United States. Jupiter Hammon was born in Long Island, New York, on October 17, 1711.

Elijah Cummings quoted this poem, by Dr Benjamin Mays, in his first speech as a new Congressman.

https://ramblinglisasbookreviews.com/2016/09/10/poem-i-have-only-just-a-minute-by-dr-benjamin-e-mays/

Here's the text.

Poem – I have only just a minute. by Dr. Benjamin E. Mays

I have only just a minute,

Only sixty seconds in it.

Forced upon me, can’t refuse it.

Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it.

A favorite poem by Maya Angelou. 

An Aspect of Love, Alive in the Ice and Fire

by Gwendolyn Brooks

In a package of minutes there is this We.
How beautiful.
Merry foreigners in our morning,
we laugh, we touch each other,
are responsible props and posts.

A physical light is in the room.

Because the world is at the window
we cannot wonder very long.

You rise. Although
genial, you are in yourself again.
I observe
your direct and respectable stride.
You are direct and self-accepting as a lion
in Afrikan velvet. You are level, lean,
remote.


There is a moment in Camaraderie
when interruption is not to be understood.
I cannot bear an interruption.
This is the shining joy;
the time of not-to-end.

On the street we smile.
We go
in different directions
down the imperturbable street.

We need to revive that poetry thread.