What if We Stood Up

  by admin    Poetry + Prose     1 Comment

What if the American people decided to reclaim their democracy

Re-ignite their freedom

Not all of us for sure, jeez

There will always be some American tories

And some who just got to see someone enslaved

Our history will always tell us the stories

Of what we did to some

Who just couldn’t stand no aristocracy nor oligarchy

Or couldn’t nor wouldn’t overcome

But what is all the preachers, priests, rabbis, and Imams preached love and justice and freedom like their Scriptures teach

It can’t be that hard to reach

And we all took it to heart

No, again, not all of us but just the part

Who can still feel and love and stand

When you’re right you stand like a man

My momma used to say

And wasn’t it Sojourner Truth who said,
“Ain’t I a woman?”

Like Harriet Tubman

When neither had anything but a soul of freedom and the strength to stand

And didn’t the striking sanitation workers in Memphis in 1968 carry signs that simply said, “I am a Man.”