As we enter the Black History month we must be reminded of the true history of the black experience, both good and bad. This month we should celebrate the trials and tribulations of our ancestors, but remember that there is still work to do.
First things first, I am unapologetically BLACK
My cultural roots uplifted by the white man tied and chained my brain washed from its origin
A quadrennium held in captivity to build up America only to be treated as an animal
Chocolate skinned turned to charcoal by the heat of plantation sun
Years counted on lashed backs and broken necks hanging from a thread
My black mothers stripped of their womanhood
Raped of their pride
Bred like cattle only to serve the master that is these Divided States of America
Since the beginning, we sought freedom
Freedom to be free from poplar trees and being sold for nickels and pennies
Free to learn our ABCs and not picking crops on our hands and knees
In the nineteenth century legislation declared us finally free
Legally
But systematically confined to the cropping lands supposedly to be shared
They were not
Economically deemed a slave not by definition but occupation
But then Laughton wrote about a dream deferred
How our American dream was not a dream at all
But our rights soon came
And Dr. King said LET FREEDOM RING
Yet we still lay dead under white sheets
Picking up cotton sheets filled with bundles of black joy from the sidewalk
But do not be dismayed
Though our history bleak
Our hearts are filled with tremendous pride
We are strong and bold
And bleed black gold
We come from a group of fighters and revolutionaries
We have been to the mountaintop and do not plan on coming down anytime soon
We wear our stars and stripes on our blacks and ‘fros on our hands
We shall overcome and create change in our nation
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free
We, all of, the people demand equality
Our history did not begin with slavery
We came from Kings and Queens
And we remain Kings and Queens
We are black EVERY month
And unapologetic at that
And we too, are America
