This Is for My Ancestors

This is for the ones who took lashes for me

The ones who marched through racial slurs and ugliness for me

This is for the ones who took dog bites and hoses for me in the streets of Birmingham

The ones who sat at lunch counters as spit and hate was layered on like an ugly retribution

This is for ones who took bullets and beatings for me. Spent nights in jail and penned a letter in Alabama to speak on injustice for me

This is for the ones who were lynched and hung from trees. Lost their lives in the filthy forests of the Jim Crow south.

This is for a nation stolen and pushed across the sea to meet bondage and death. For the ones who jumped ship to remain free on the waves

Finally this is for a King whose crown was knocked off with a snipers bullet in Memphis. This is for the DREAM written in clouds and still waiting to come down like living water

I listen to my ancestors sing negro spiritual with chains on forlorn feet

But they endured for me as they dreamed of being free.