African-American History
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that if you are a minority then you are irrelevant. And If you’re not using drugs, then you must be selling it. Living in a world, where girls are no longer celibate. This is how I feel and poetry is the medium that I’m telling it.
Liberty is a boon, so you just might want to cherish it. From the 1619 Dutch Ships its been a fight for African Americans. From Banneker and Wheatley going against the grain in America. The merit that they attained, gained praise from Voltaire and Ben Franklin. But they still thought, that blacks couldn’t think, so they kept the fettered in iron clad chains.
But headstrong they remained, rebellion was a medium that freedom was attained. In 1800 there was Prosier, In 1822 there was Vessy, In 1831 Nat Turner, which got a little messy.
Another way to escape was to run away through a convoluted system trail blazed by Tubman. Then there was Douglass, who broke away from the proclaimed slave breaker Edward Covey. Who wrote his name in eternal flames by going against the grain to gain what he wanted. Johnson, Grant, and Hayes, hated him during reconstruction. Nevertheless he reconstructed the structure of what others perceived to be a democratic republic.
13th Amendment passed but no genuine liberty yet. Vagrancy laws, KKK, grandfather clause, literacy test. Douglass was a pioneer of African American rights but let me introduce you to the rest.
Marcus Garvey took them back to Africa. While Du Bios’ Movement in Niagara, pleaded for action. Washington’s Compromise in Atlanta, parallel to a pacifist, said learn the tools of the trade then we can master it.
Civil rights aided Ida B Wells-Barnett, Jacob Lawrence’s dark silhouettes, Langston Hughes poems of black misery put the whole nation in check.
54 Brown vs. Board, 55 they killed that Till boy. In 63 they assassinated JFK. Civil rights in 64, voting rights in 65, all thanks to LBJ. But don’t think that everythings ok because in 68 they got MLK. Damn.
We hold these truths to be self-evident the fruition of King’s dream was not a black president presiding on the basics of a nation still faced with racial prejudice. This is how I feel and poetry is the medium that I’m telling it.
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ANDREW CAIN is an African American male from the blighted south east district of Washington D.C. He is a student at the University of Connecticut’s Undergraduate School of Art’s and Science. He is a History major on a quest to venture into sensitive depths where many are afraid to go, and unveil the truth, once and for all, of America’s darkest days.
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