I’ve been black long enough.
Long enough to know about the middle passage
Men, women, children, regardless of age
Stuffed in a ship, like animals in a cage
Long enough to know about slavery
And the white man’s feeling of mastery
Causing human beings a lifetime of misery
Long enough to know about Jim Crow
The unjust laws, instituted, blow after blow
Crushing the spirit of those they refused to get to know
Long enough to know about lynchings
The ‘strange fruit’ hanging from trees
After enduring a myriad of indignities
I’ve been black long enough.
Long enough to see separate but ‘un’equal classrooms
Schools with computers, others with maybe a broom
Leading inevitably to unequal boardrooms
Long enough to see the Civil Rights movement
It’s effect on America barely a dent
While many courageous freedom fighters came & went
Long enough to see housing inequities
Driving past neighborhoods with no diversity
Wondering will we ever have inclusivity
Long enough to see the police forget
Those they are sworn to serve and protect
Instead they put a knee on their neck
I’ve been black long enough.
Long enough to experience racial discrimination
I have felt it on more than one occasion
One time as a child on a family vacation
I was ten when I jumped into the motel pool
The white folks scattered; (was I made of stool?)
And glared at me as if I was the fool
Or when our family moved into a neighborhood
Only to watch signs pop up on placard and wood
‘For Sale’ signs to get the hell out of the hood
The confederate flag flew at my oldest son’s school
So what are concerned parents to do?
We dialogued a resolution until all parties were cool
I’ve been black long enough.
Hopeful or hopeless? Probably more of the latter
POTUS can’t even say the words ‘Black Lives Matter’
To some I may sound like a man full of blather
I’m not, it’s just that I’ve been black long enough
To know that enough is enough.
Penned June 4, 2020
Copyright 2020
Curtiss L. Hayes, Jr.
General
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It seems I have been waiting for your arrival, would you like to have a seat.
The door closes behind in the Congressional legislative mansion.
Is everything we say in here being recorded.
We are free to say what we want, when we want, and mean to say just what’s on our mind.
Are we still talking about the legislative mansion.
No, I never said I was at a legislative mansion.
It is something that was mentally recorded.