August 28th

Painful memories of a time
Tattered American flag struggling in the breeze
Historic corpses littering the trees like old fruit that got stuck on a branch as gravity ran its course
Blood rinsed away by the jets of water the police spray
Canine soldiers grasping at ethnic straws, limbs and spirits crushed in their jaws
Whips and chains, skin disappear as welts raise like yeast
Rope and transportation, sliding around town like I was heading for home plate
Boycott products as non violent resistance, while colored signs dictate where I can and can't be
Assassinations of progressive leaders who represent faith and hope
A people imprisoned grasping desperately to their soap on a rope
Despite every injustice he had a dream
Dr King exclaimed that Negros weren't free
He described a world of discrimination and poverty
A people destroyed mentally and physically but never spiritually
And on that fateful day, calm and collected on those iconic steps

"...when we allow freedom ring -- when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet,
from every state and ever city, we will be able to speed up that day when all God's children --
black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics -- will be able to join hands and sing
in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

History repeats itself as evident by our consistent predicaments
Only time will tell if we can gain more then our current sense
If compassion and justice will mean more in future rather than past tense
Pointless destruction of human life and faithless abominations of what used to be
Fifty years later...still awaiting a collected effort to meet the expectations of what Dr. King longed to see




- Yung Urban