BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

PLANTATION  LIFE







Hard work in the fields
Was the way of life
Goes back to the sugar
Plantations of the island
Days then tobacco and
Cotton from southern
Plantations then the steel
Mills and refineries of the
Great migration to urbanization
On to sports and entertainment
Arenas we can't seem to escape
The plantation

BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

JIM CROW IS ALIVE



Jim Crow did not die
With the signing of
The civil rights bill
Into law
Jim Crow is alive for
There are still unwritten
Laws used to subjugate to
Try and rule  Black people
To keep them sitting in
The back of the bus to
Keep them drinking
From the colored only
Water fountain to keep
Them in shackles forever
Enslaved

BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

TEARS FOR OUR CHILDREN



Crying for them all
Especially for the
Children
Crying for things we
Lost in the fires of the
Struggle for humanity
Crying for the four
Little girls slain in the
Birmingham church
Bombing crying
For emmitt till
Brutally slain in Mississippi
On the early
Battlefield  of civil rights
Ruby bridges the little
Rock nine they were the sacrificial
Lambs our children marching
Dying for the cause
Crying tears for all our children
Done away with by those
Who saw fit to hit
Us where it hurts most
In our future generations

BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

WAKE UP


Don't be shocked
Malcolm said when I
Say I was in prison you
Still in prison

I've left from where I've
Been but you still there
Malcolm said you still a
Prisoner of your own
Mind by the way you
Think you still sleep

BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

EPIDEMIC PROPORTIONS


Everything has always been
Anti the Black man yet we
Building America too
Like you even
Though what we got overtime
Was hatred, discrimination, drugs, disrespect
And imprisonment always
Trying to get rid of us, send us
Away back to Africa any place
But here
Lock us up kill us
Off exterminate us like a
Plague of epidemic proportions

BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

UNRESOLVED ISSUES

Been going around in circles
Trying to find it but not much
Has changed in hundreds of
Years for us except time
Different decade
Different century
Different Black man
Same nonsense still must be
Overcome that we haven't
Overcome yet
We shall overcome again
And again with no end in sight

BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

WHAT FREEDOM?







I be's a free man said the
Ex-slave after emancipation
In 1865 declared it law.

Yet some Negros did not
Realize a problem existed
With  the idea of freedom
Until 99 years later when a
Civil rights bill was passed into
Law giving us certain unalienable
Rights that should have already
Been  ours without question

We hold these truths to be
Self- evident that
All men are created equal
That includes us Negros
We the people too

BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE




Huey p newton minister
Of defense for the black
Panther party talking about
Black power not just brute
Strength black power but us
As a people empowering
Ourselves acquiring holistic
Knowledge to combat racism
To increase our revolutionary
Fervor and huey
Was a ph.d

BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

ROCKING THE BOAT



White people pulled all the
Stops to keep Black people
From getting their just due.
Two four six eight we don't
Want to integrate they said no
Niggas in our schools they said
Send them back to Africa where
They come from they said but the
Lil rock nine lil ruby bridges and
James meredith began to rock the
Education desegration boat and
White people could not yet
Accept the fact that niggas were
People too that niggas bled red
Blood too

BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

SEPARATE BUT equal




Pre-civil rights era
White people were convinced we
Should all live separate but equal.
Segregated
My land is my land your land is your
Land kind of thing no discrimination
Separate but equal.
Negroe people were like yeah
We can live with that too we don't need
To occupy the same space in conflict.
We can be self-sufficient do for
Ourselves just give us our 40 acres
And a mule we can work with that
Just give us a fair deal. As the years passed
Things did not change prejudice and
Racism raised it's ugly head in hunger
And a movement for change was born

BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

NOW WE HERE



We started from the bottom
De-segregated schools and
Lunch counters water fountains and
Toilets boycotts and sit-ins massive
Demonstrations to use urinals beside
White folk . All the time working
Steadily all the time working our
Way back to being the head and
Not the tail

BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

HEADS OR TAILS





Booker T and W.E.B. were two
Sides of the same coin both
Black.  The mistake we always
Make about which was the
Right side to choose like
Malcolm or Martin Luther
King two sides of the same
Coin was not learning to put
Certain differences aside for
The sake of unification

BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

FIRST QUESTION



Is our existence an accident
Of evolution?
Or is it the
Creator's plan that the
Black man must live out
His destiny and overcome the
Curse he put upon himself
Through ignorance and disobedience
Of Divine Law?

BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

THE LETTER M STANDS FOR MARTYR



Medgar Evers of Mississippi
Registered Blacks to vote in
The deep South
Assassinated by someone they knew
But did not convict

Malcolm X on the streets of Manhattan
Spoke on the
Inhumane treatment of Black people
On a world stage
Assassinated by someone they knew
But did not convict


Martin Luther King in Memphis
Standing up for the rights of Black
Oppressed workers
Assassinated by someone they knew
But did not convict


Was this all a part of the
Master plan of Black genocide
That they know nothing about?

BLACK HISTORY POEM PROJECT

HISTORY 101


History 101 should be read as
His story 101 and is based
On lies and misconceptions
That Black people were lead to
Believe as the truth that would
Set us all free one day
But it didn't
It couldn't
As a result we have
Witnessed truth crushed
To earth rising again

BACKSTABBBERS - THE O'JAYS

2/1 - Saturday 12:11 am


First time long time since I spoke to my ex this evening. We had a small family crisis that needed to be resolved or else it could have been blown out of proportion. Although I was nipping it in the bud it was good to hear from her because I got an angle of the incident which I didn't have before. Her commentary resolved the issue for me. It was like I thought but I couldn't prove my point without an eye witness. She was that. Basically we talked on that incident and my beef incident from the other day.

8:04 pm

First day of "Black History Month." It means different things to different people and it has a very special place in my heart.

Been around for a long while going back to when it was a week long. I go some special plan to honor our shining Black Kings and Queens by writing a poem a day for the month of February. I just got the idea and impulse earlier today and I will see where it goes. Hopefully some good stuff will come out of it.

MOVIE DAY

Lonewolf's Movie Review - Movies I watched on cable - 2013


"ALL THINGS FALL APART"   Dir: Mario Van Peebles

With 50 Cent, Angela Bassett, and the director. A very poignant movie about a football player, super-star potential, Heisman Trophy candidate who finds out he has cancer, and now he has to adjust to a different way of living. Good story-line.


"JOHN Q" (1999) Dir: Nick Cassavetes

 Somewhat believable story about a man (Denzel Washington) who takes over a hospital/ER room, in order to get a heart transplant operation for his son.

Memorable line: "I'm not gonna bury my son. My son's gonna bury me."

High point in the movie: When all his efforts have failed, John Q comes to the conclusion that if no heart donor was available, he would kill himself and donate HIS heart for his son. That scene was the story's "Black Moment."

THE COLDEST DAY OF MY LIFE - The Stylistics

1/30 - Thursday 4:32 pm

I don't want beef with my baby girl. She grown now and bout to be on her own. She has to understand that I'm here for her; just follow my lead. I'm not tryna keep her tied to my apron strings...Yeh I got those, but she has to know when it's time to stop the foolishness.

What I mean is to let her peeps make the move in her direction. SHE'S THE PRIZE. That nigga not! SHE IS! When she realize who she really is, she will carry herself differently.

For now she got to learn on her own, and the way life goes, she has a lot of lessons to learn, and a long way to go before she catches on.

I WAKE UP CRYING - Roy Hamilton

1/28 - Tuesday 7:22 am

Looking forward to the wedding in May. Just trying to figure out how I'm gonna put that week together. Think I might get into town a couple of days before the event so things won't be such a rush. The closer the time approaches, the more settled my plans will be.

Thinking about following up hug on that hug from L.S. that was so real a few months ago, but things not always what they seem to you. As usual I will play it by ear.

On the tail end of the wedding though, I think I'll spend that weekend in the city and head back to Ohio by that next Sunday or Monday, depending on what's happening.

movie day

Lonewolf's Movie Review - Movies I watched on cable- 2013

"Freedomland"  (2006) Dir. Joe Roth

A Samuel L. Jackson movie. I enjoyed the mystery of wondering what the fuck happened. The "projects" under-siege didn't work for me, but the missing child theme had me calling my children to see if they were okay, and where they were supposed to be. When they were searching for the child in "Freedomland," an abandoned facility once used to house mentally disturbed children, the scenes reminded me of Geraldo Rivera's expose' documentary about Willowbrooke, and most recently, the second season of "American Horror Story: Asylum."

===================================================

Then I watched the epic "King of Kings" (1961) Dir. Nicholas Ray

It was your usual long (3 hrs) boring biblical film about the life of Jesus Christ. Not much you can do with a story like that except add characters that never existed to boost the story-line. Much has been made about Jesus dying on the cross to save our, meaning all of us in the world, but in this movie, I got the impression that he died for his followers at that time and place.