MLK

I was digging through the dusty old files that my mom kept and I came across this little number that I thought to share with you. I wrote this poem as part of a writing assignment in the 8th grade as a tribute Alex Haley's novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Fun fact, it won 3rd place in an island wide poetry contest though in reality there were probably three entries (c'mon St. Thomas)...please enjoy this nonetheless. Also keep in mind these were my younger years ;) 


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A Struggle Deeper Than Thought

The Struggle, the trouble, the people, the hassles

Like brothers fighting brothers, we are in mental shackles

My people were beaten, captured, shipped on boats packed like mice

Only to be sold, enslaved to pick cotton and rice

Proud African men protecting their families with their lives!

While the white me beat and rape our girl children and wives

Plotting plans to rebel, listening to stories of redemption

The white toubob call us a name that today we can't mention

This will one day Passover, the wise one tells us

Yet our children to come must sit in the back of a bus

Kept strong in our journey though dust filled our boots

We stayed steadfast in the effort to rediscover our Roots

And now looking back at the challenges we faced

We came together like the thread of a beautiful sarong

The Mandinka woman has laced

And as I look back at the battles we fought

This was a journey, a struggle, one deeper than thought.

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 Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness ~~ Martin Luther King Jr.