African American History

by Andrew C.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that if you are a 
minority then you are irrelevant. And If you're not using drugs, then you must 
be selling it. Living in a world, where girls are no longer celibate
This is how I feel and poetry is the medium that I'm telling it.

Liberty is a boon, so you just might want to cherish it. From the 1619 Dutch 
Ships it's been a fight for African Americans. From Banneker and Wheatley going 
against the grain in America. The merit that they attained, gained praise from 
Voltaire and Ben Franklin. But they still thought, that blacks couldn't think, 
so they kept the fettered in iron clad chains. 

But headstrong they remained, rebellion was a medium that freedom was attained. 
In 1800 there was Prosser, In 1822 there was Vesey, In 1831 Nat Turner, which 
got a little messy. 

Another way to escape was to run away through a convoluted system trail blazed 
by Tubman. Then there was Douglass, who broke away from the proclaimed slave 
breaker Edward Covey. Who wrote his name in eternal flames by going against the 
grain to gain what he wanted. Johnson, Grant, and Hayes, hated him during 
reconstruction. Nevertheless he reconstructed the structure of what others 
perceived to be a democratic republic. 

13th Amendment passed but no genuine liberty yet. Vagrancy laws, KKK, 
grandfather clause, literacy test. Douglass was a pioneer of African American 
rights but let me introduce you to the rest.

Marcus Garvey took them back to Africa. While Du Bois' Movement in Niagara, 
pleaded for action. Washington's Compromise in Atlanta, parallel to a 
pacifist, said learn the tools of the trade then we can master it.

Civil rights aided Ida B Wells-Barnett, Jacob Lawrence's dark silhouettes, 
Langston Hughes poems of black misery put the whole nation in check.

54 Brown vs. Board, 55 they killed that Till boy. In 63 they assassinated JFK. 
Civil rights in 64, voting rights in 65, all thanks to LBJ. But don't think that 
everything's ok because in 68 they got MLK. Damn.

We hold these truths to be self-evident the fruition of King's dream was not a 
black president presiding on the basics of a nation still faced with racial 
prejudice. This is how I feel and poetry is the medium that I'm telling it.