Context of “Is It Because I am Black?”

The poem shows Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr. questioning and complaining about white people looking down on the situation of black negro people. The poem talks about how white men sneer when a black man stands up. He questions why do the white people think of black people as inferior. This is what Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr. is protesting about through this poem.

Joseph writes the poem as about himself by using the word “I”. This could suggest that Joseph may have had a bad time as a negro living in Kentucky in the 1900s.