Take a look into my eyes,
Take a deep deep look,
A look so deep that the gaze causes you to drown away into my thoughts
I am much older than Katrina, and I am much older than riots in 1992 and 1965,
I am much older than eyes that closed that allowed a preacher to dream,
And I am much older than Malcolm Little when he knelt before Elijah Mohammad,
I’m so old that I can remember the Great Migration to the North, and, honestly, I was old then too
Because even though I was free to leave the South and go north, I vividly remember 1865 when I became free, period.
That was the day when I looked at my calloused hands blistered with the hulls of the cotton which I picked for centuries,
And, I clenched my fist and let the blood drip from my palms to unpicked cotton below and cried to God that I would Never Ever be a slave again!
To this day, I’ll never know if he heard me;
I’ll never even know if he was my God, or just the oppressors who I once called “Massah”
Honestly, I don’t remember who my God was, I don’t even remember my name, or where I came from
I lost that all when they chained me to that damned ship and brought me here
For 3 months I lay in whirling darkness, envying the humanity given to rats and roaches
Fearing them too, as they gnawed at the dead and ate our handcuffed emaciated flesh
I lost my sons and daughters, my nieces and nephews, my mother and father and friends in that hell
Those who didn’t die were thrown overboard to lessen the load of the ship
Thrown overboard like dirty rags, thrown overboard like helpless dirty rags
Their screams still haunt me so much that my eyes forever became cold
You see, beneath this nappy hair, big lips, and dark skin, I am over 400 years old
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Black don’t crack.
We do, you don’t believe me? Take a look at the whip marks on my back.
Then take a look at the bone protruding from my ankle where they chained me,
Take a look at my limping knee where over 30 times they clubbed me
Or pass me a tissue, and I’ll cough up the blood from generations of beatings
I crack. I bruise. I cry. I feel pain. And, at times I’ve wished I was dead
I’m human. It still brings me to tears to say that.
Nothing about my life has been humane.
I remember 1776 like it was just yesterday.
I fought in that war; I fought for the freedom of the United States.
I fought because the truth was “self evident” that all men are created equal.
Little did I know, I was only 3/5ths of that man.
I gave my life to fight for the freedom for what?
At the end, I was more of a slave then I was before.
When that revolutionary war ended, I basked in the glorious sun and extended my arm in hope of being called equal
But, in my extended hand they placed a shovel and told me to dig
The once glorious sun then beat on me causing beads of sweat to drop from my body like daggers,
Its beating only matched when they mercilessly whipped me for digging the coarse tundra too slowly
And they called me a word that to this very day sends shudders from my spine down to the earth below so much so that I lose my balance and can hardly stand when I hear it.
Nigger.
Weeping as the dripping sweat caused my fresh foot long wounds to burn
And blood-curdingly screaming, I gripped the ragged shovel as they poured salt on my wounds
I cried, “Why must I dig massah! MASSAH! Why!”
“To bury your hopes and dreams, nigger.” He replied with a menacing cackle,
“To bury your hopes and dreams.”
I hadn’t dreamed since the slave ship, and I lost hope after that day too.
Whatever hope I had left boomed from my bowels like a benediction,
The hope that that Sweet Chariot would swing low and carry me home.
Or the hope to “Keep my hand on the plow”
Amidst my hollow hymns, I fathered thousands of children.
Some were my own blood, and they hated me for being cursed with my hands
Others were the seeds of my daughter’s rape; they hated me because they had the hands of my Massah
Cursing me, spitting at me, throwing rocks at me because they hated the fact
That one drop of “me” made them ME!
And that no matter how much perm, presses, peroxide or bleach they pampered on themselves
That even after the Civil War; they would never be able to escape ME!
I’ve been free for over 150 years now.
Ha, some freedom if you ask me.
They promised me 40 acres and a mule,
But instead they gave me black codes, Plessy, and Jim Crow.
Before they cut off my tongue in slavery when I tried to read like them,
Now they cut off the funding for my school so I’ll never read like them.
I finally got my sons and daughters to rally with me like panthers
We united to lift ourselves from the pits of despair
Rallying behind Huey Newton and Bobby Seale
We wore black to symbolize our new-found pride in black.
And, it ended blackly, as they sent discord to rip through our chords
Once proud black, now stained with crippled blue and bloody red
And crack rock contraband sprinkled in the middle
So that my sons face life imprisonment
So, their sons and daughters don’t know them
And, once again, they don’t know me.
I fought in wars and was put in the front line to die
Considered “expendable”, my operation was suicide
I’ve fought in every war and every major battle for this nation
I fought as a slave, I fought as a segregated man, and I still fight
Instead of segregation, now I fight because socioeconomics leaves me at the bottom
I tried to climb up the totem pole.
I climbed day and night for over 20 years.
As I climbed, my slave clothes were replaced with business suits.
And when I slept, the wind whispered into my ears to be like them.
When I got to the top of the pole, so high above the clouds that I could hardly stand
I looked down through binoculars to my daughters and sons hungry jaws
They were eager to climb up like I had
I threw down a rope, to try to pull up my daughters and sons
The rope was torn to shreds; they called my action too affirmative
The pole was then covered in slime pasted in crack rock.
My daughters and sons try to climb, but they didn’t get high up the pole
They only got high, so the earth shook beneath them and they fell further into a pit.
Now, I struggle to even get them back to where they were before.
I’ve lived for over 400 years and I’ve seen it all.
I’ve drowned in my own thoughts, and brought myself back to life.
My dreams have been shattered like porcelain dropped from a tower
And my hope has been chopped up like thousands of fiery spores blowing ashes away in the wind
Yet, I continue to breathe in the air through my lungs and move forward.
From slavery, to black codes, from segregation, to Jim Crow,
From black panthers to crips, from being shipped in chains to being slashed by whips
Through it all, I rise. Like the sun after dusk, I rise.
Like a single blossom, bathed in the waters of spring, I rise.
And like the clenched fist I throw up in the air, bearing the hope of my generation,
I WILL RISE.
