Once ri/ding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimor/ean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no wh/it bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His to/ngue, and called me, “Ni/er.”

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That’s all that I remember.
what is the universal theme