600
Three hundred years
of humiliation, abuse
and deprivation
can not be expected
to find voice
in a
whisper.
-King
They didn't whisper.
Their shouts sounded
from the streets
of every major city
crashing like a tidal wave, against the shore,
reverberating form the buildings.
Their marching freedom
songs, filled with
the suppressed rage
and anguish
of a people, so repressed,
they couldn't go
to the store
at midnight without fear.
A people
for whom justice,
was not a means of redress
but a threat.
A people
so deeply entombed
in the mire and
dankness of society,
made to sit low
only given tokens and
"appeased".
And so that
rage-which had been
passed from generation to generation,
from sold away father to raped daughter,
from forced concubine mother,
to brutally beaten son,
for three hundred years,
through blood and mother's milk-
finally,
boiled over.
They were long passed tired,
of being
"kept in their place"
of watching their mothers,
fathers ,brothers, sisters,
daughters, sons
dragged away, made to become
one with the tree of life.
Long passed tired of being oppressed
and depressed and
only ever hearing
"Wait"
Of pounding on the door and only hearing
"We're not ready for you,
yet. Come again later."
So they stood up
with dignity and respect
and systematically
began demanding their rights
-given to all, common to all-
again.
Singing was their war cry and
pointed were their arrows,
of moral condemnation in their
quivers of righteousness.
