Citywide Poets MLK Day Poem

on Feb 16 in Uncategorized by

For three years in a row, teams of Citywide Poets have written and performed a group poem to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This year Joseph Verge, Ariana Washington and Andrew Barnhill performed “Legacy” to over 3,200 listeners at three major events:

  • Interfaith Center for Racial Justice’s 24th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Celebration of Macomb County Jan. 17th in Warren, MI.
  • Wayne State University’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Tribute, Jan. 18th at the Max M. Fisher Music Center.
  • The Detroit Jazz Fest’s “Freedom 2011″ held Feb. 11th at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History where a sold out crowd of over 350 gave them a standing ovation.

Legacy

A tribute poem written and performed by Andrew Barnhill, Joseph Verge and Ariana Washington.

All: In the 1960’s

AW: Dr. King dreamed for everybody whose skin has been kissed by the sun.

AB: fought his way around walls of racial discrimination,

over mountains of hate and criticism,

through waterfalls of stereotype

JV: He gave us all a reason to look beyond tomorrow

All: In the 1960’s Dr. King died a hero of his time

JV: Most people say

AW: that Martin Luther King would have turned in his grave

AB: if he saw what was going on now

JV: he fought for equality and rights

he also fought so that hatred wouldn’t be thrown around our young children like free throws

AB: in our time we watch great men leap from faith

take flight from free throw lines of hope.

While we praise them for their hang time from sidelines

but when will we take a hop, skip, and jump of our own?

JV: You have to understand

that one of the forces that limited Dr. King,

like most people, was time.

So it’s unfortunate he didn’t have a Facebook account to write on Phoebe’s wall

To tell her that everything was gonna be alright

AB: Who flies anymore?

AW: In March 2010 15-year old Phoebe Prince hung herself

Or should I say she was murdered

Because a group of girls reported her life into spam

Used their keyboards as bullets

Facebook was the gun

and public humiliation pulled trigger

AB: Who tries to chase the skyline anymore?

AW: All of our hands drip her blood

One click could have kept her alive

Yet our inaction

pulled the stand out from under her feet as she hung herself

AB: We don’t spring because we fear the fall

AW: In March 2010 I was logged in on Facebook

However I was too busy posting pictures and making statuses

To let Phoebe know that today is not forever

I was even too busy to just “like” her picture

and let her know she’s beautiful

JV: No there was no on there to tell her

that deactivating her life wasn’t the answer

Because you can’t bring everything back with control-Z

We still have problems on our status that Dr. king can’t comment on

So it’s up to us to delete them

AW: Our problems

JV: These problems didn’t come out of nowhere

AB: these viruses aren’t ordinary

JV: they weren’t delivered by a stork

AW: They didn’t hide in our inbox disguised as friendly emails

AB: they were birthed by the lack of education from our previous generations

AW: they are the seed of our selfishness

JV: the lack of jobs that would build our self-esteem and courage

AB: they hacked onto us like leeches attached to files we downloaded

And tried to keep a secret

AW: It takes a village to raise a child

JV: but if that village can’t control what goes on in their own boundaries

Then that child is nothing than a product of their environment

Becoming a puppet to society

AW: Maybe Dr. King turned in his grave

When grinding and hustling became the only way to make a dime

When unemployment raped my brother of his manhood

And liquor empowered him

Or maybe when my sister decided weed was the only way

To get high enough to float away from poverty

And see the mountaintop like

AW and JV: Martin

JV: always said that education is the key to success

but back then keys weren’t standard

and education wasn’t standardized

Schools are still segregated by race and wealth

problems too complex to write in multiple choice bubbles

the same bubbles they want us to think in

AB: King died in the springtime of our struggle for equality

When colored people were only beginning to demand

That their seed blossom just as beautifully as their white camellia counterparts

Struggling against the Klu Klux Klan, who smothered activists with White supremacist pollen,

Lynching their sinuses waiting for them to sneeze

AW: Because when you sneeze your heart stops

King sneezed and we stopped breathing life into his dream

in fear of having our own allergic reaction

his legacy goes further into cardiac arrest

All: And it’s time for us to perform CPR

JV: It’s easy to wish that Dr. King was a superhero

Able to solve problems past his lifetime

With time travel

We keep waiting for superman to come save us

All: But it’s up to us

JV: To take self-defense classes to empower ourselves

AW: We can revive the movement

brush lips with the world and exhale

JV: Blow empowerment and success into the lungs of society

pressing guidance into the heart of the world

AB: We can resuscitate the will to educate

AW: rehabilitate our generation

JV: so that one day hope may regain its pulse

ALL: and we can begin to live what he dreamed

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