Yesterday

Me and my people…
We’ve lost our way.
We’ve forgotten what was done yesterday
To give us all we have today.
Me and my people, we joke laugh, and play.
But do we ever stop to reminisce,
Reminisce of yesterday.
Yesterday there was a struggle,
And our brothers acted more like brothers.
Yesterday we were all real, and no one was undercover.
Yesterday we had a dream,
And found the coal to make our steam.
Yesterday many of our brothers were hanging with the leaves.
But some things will never change, because I still feel “the man” hanging me.
And since we’re all brothers supposedly living in unity,
Why don’t you have this ring around your neck like me?
I thought we were fighting the same struggle.
But instead we fight one another.
And until we decide to become unified,
Willie Lynch will continue to live inside.
What his letter said it did,
That was keep us all divided.
United we stand divided we fall.
This has always been the rule of thumb.
Yesterday, today, nor tomorrow shall this policy succumb.
Divide, and conquer,
And conquer they did.
The white man kept us divided over 300 years.
Yesterday, we were forced upon division.
And to our dreadful cries no one listened.
Shackled on a boat to be shipped, and work in a white mans kitchen,
Or on his plantation in the fields cotton pickin’.
Yesterday, we were ripped from our homes,
And detached from our thrones,
To be placed in a land that to us was unknown.
Yesterday, we went from kings and queens in a black mans Africa,
To servants, and slaves in a white mans America.
Yesterday we were forced to build this nation on our backs.
But yesterday, today, nor tomorrow will we ever get credit for that.
Yesterday, we fought for freedom, and never looked back,
Despite our opposition, and the white man’s horrendous attacks.
Yesterday, they broke us down but could not keep us there.
We rose in the face of oppression, and gave it a bold stare.
Yesterday, today, nor tomorrow shall a black man be kept down.
Our limits exceed the sky though we started from the ground.
Yesterday, they paved the way, with there blood, sweat, and tears.
But many of us have forgotten this, as we proceeded through the years.
Yesterday, it was not uncommon for an Africans fate to be held in European hands.
Because they mistook themselves for God when they “discovered” an already discovered
land.
Yesterday, today, nor tomorrow will it be a man’s right to old another man’s fate.
As our masters strived to supersede the Lord we stayed strong and refueled our faith.
Yesterday we were strong.
Much stronger than today.
If only we had the same strength,
THE STRENGTH OF YESTERDAY.

I Apologize

To all my brave soldiers who were murdered, who hung, and who died, I apologize.
I apologize for having a fogged vision,
And not excepting the right prescription for my unclear eyes.
I apologize for hearing the truth and knowing the struggle you went through,
But never doing anything, and setting back as if I’d forgotten about you.
I apologize for loosing my identity, and not always being the true me.
I apologize for forgetting about racism,
And acting as if the KKK didn’t originate in my home state of Tennessee.
I apologize for every time I’ve disrespected you, and used the word nigga,
And for every time I referred to an ebony female as a bitch,
Instead of my beautiful Nubian sister.
I apologize for ever time I took my education for granted,
Because when you had the urge to learn you were reprimanded.
I apologize.
I apologize for so many years throughout my life,
Because I’ve been spoon fed so many lies.
Oh my God! I apologize
Today we have so many freedoms and rights,
But we never stop to think about who paid the price.
All you wanted was for me and my people to have a better life,
And I apologize because today were so negatively generalized,
But as a whole we give them a reason
To think that were nothing more than ignorant heathens.
Sometimes I think in vain you lost your lives,
And for that I apologize.
All the whipped backs, all the divided homes,
All the lost souls, and all the kings dethroned.
So many lynching’s, and brand marks too.
Police brutality, and plenty of blisters on the feet inside the marching shoes.
I apologize one thousand times, as soul felt raindrops pour from my eyes.
I think of the many nights that you cried.
I think of your brothers who were tortured, and who died.
I apologize.
Never again shall we see your face or here your voice
And I apologize if we don’t stand up and change our course.
I’m so sorry and I apologize, because Willie Lynch still divides our lives.
Were still divided by location, age, size and shade,
As if were not in the same marathon, and running the same race.
I apologize but I can’t get them to see what’s in my eyes.
They don’t see your limp body hanging from a tree,
Every time the word nigga is thrown around so lightly in the streets.
They don’t see your many days of servitude,
When they proceed in skipping and failing in school.
They don’t see the bullets through your chest,
Or your body on a hospital bed, every time they kill someone over blue or red.
They don’t see Emmett Till’s face, when a white man call our kids a perverted disgrace,
Because they mimic the way we are portrayed on TV, from what we do to what we say.
They don’t see marching feet or Rosa’s seat,
Ever time they ride the bus or drive,
And good God, I apologize.
I’m so sorry, and pray that you will forgive me,
But you are gone now you are memory.
But since you’re your soul lives on and you are more than memory, your our history.
But they don’t see what you did for them, and at times I forget what you did for me.
And if we never realize what you did, what you went through,
And how you sacrificed your lives.
How you worked all day and night.
How you bleed, sweat, and cried, so that we can have a better life,
Then on behalf of me and my people
I APOLOGIZE.