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Premiere: March 13, 2026

Run time: 4:30

Let Me Not Hate
SSAATTBB, Soprano solo, Piano, Viola
Words by Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880-1966)

Commissioned and Premiered by Voices West, Littleton, Colorado Michael Todd Krueger, director as part of the "In Her Voice" commission project

Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880-1966) was a playwright and poet and an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance. She graduated from Atlanta University Normal College and then studied music at Oberlin Conservatory and the Cleveland College of Music. Johnson hosted meetings that became known as the S Street Salon. It was an important meeting place for writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Her poetry embodies a spirit of resistance in love. While facing bigotry on two fronts from misogyny and racism, she still managed to exude hope in her writings. Her poem, Let Me Not Hate, published in 1922, describes the intense hatred leveled at people, but it shows Johnson’s will to only put love back into the world. In the face of hatred, Johnson chose love. This piece tries to embody the struggle to remain hopeful and loving when the world tries to destroy.

Let me not hate, although the bruising world decries my peace,
Gives me no quarter, hounds me while I sleep;
Would snuff the candles of my soul and sear my inmost dreamings.
Let me not hate, though girt by vipers, green and hissing through the dark;
I fain must love. God help me keep the altar-gleams that flicker wearily, anon.
On down the world’s grim night.

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Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash