The Undefeated

The best word to describe “The Undefeated” is “empowering.” Written by a Black author, illustrated by a Black artist, and created for a Black audience, this poem seeks to empower its readers with an understanding of history and a celebration of what it means to be an African American. This theme of empowerment begins with the first figure of the poem, track and field olympian Jesse Owens. Owens is perhaps most famous for winning four gold medals at the 1936 olympics in Nazi Germany. Owens’s domination of his white competitors was a monumental moment in history, specifically because it occured in front of Adolf Hitler, who believed in the superiority of what he called the “master race,” which meant Aryan white Germans.

The image of Owens in the poem is accompanied by a description of him, saying he “hurdled history / and opened a world / of possible” (Lines 3-5). The poem awards Owens the historical legacy he deserves as a Black man who literally triumphed over evil and hatred.

This empowering figure couples well with boxer Jack Johnson, who appears later in the poem. Alexander says that Johnson boxed adversity. This refers to more than just Johnson’s boxing prowess; it refers to the fact that Johnson became the heavyweight champion of the world at the height of Jim Crow America, beating a white boxer the public had nicknamed The Great White Hope in the desperate hope that a Black man would not win the title. Johnson, like Owens, showed incredible strength and courage in the face of hatred.

While this idea of empowerment through strength persists in every example in the poem, perhaps the strongest example is of the unnamed Black Civil War soldier who holds the American flag and who Alexander commends for fighting for an imperfect Union. Hundreds of thousands of Black citizens joined the Union army during the Civil War, and their example is held up in the poem as a shining example of empowering strength.

Alexander writes in the Afterword that one of the reasons he wrote the poem was to remind his daughter and himself to never give up. He then quotes Maya Angelou, who spoke about the importance of meeting defeat but not letting defeat win. Angelou spoke about the importance of rising above defeat and using a loss as a learning experience. Alexander echoes this belief, saying it is important to maintain strength even in the face of great adversity.

This is why he juxtaposes defeat and victory throughout the poem. For example, early in the poem he contrasts those who survived America with those who did not. This is why he later juxtaposes the horrors of racism (slavery, terrorism, police brutality) with the strength of advocacy by the likes of Martin Luther King, civil rights activists, and Black Lives Matter protestors. The constant juxtaposition throughout the poem reminds readers that there is no success without failure and vice versa.

Ultimately, though, it is not the failures that win. The poem dedicates more space to victories and examples of strength than it does to losses. This is why the poem is called “The Undefeated” and why Alexander uses so many empowering adjectives to lead off most of the stanzas in the poem. It is also why the poem starts and ends with examples of strength and signs of hope because, in the end, this is a poem that seeks to remind its audience of the importance of fighting through adversity and maintaining hope through any hardship.