BLACK AUGUST (2024) By Kevin ”Rashid” Johnson

Over 400 years
Of Black bondage
Overwork underpay
For 30 days we pay homage
To those who resisted
The worst inhumanities
Conditions that cost
Many the loss of sanity
A people less astute
And fortified
Might have succumbed
And died
But not us! These outrages
Made our resistance thrive
A history we must
Commemorate and revive
To keep the
Names, places and events alive
The martyrs heroes
Insurgents all
Harken to
Our ancestors’ call
A month of days
During which occurred
Many events in our freedom struggle
Not to be deterred
Like Gabriel Prosser and Nat Turner’s
Revolts
Where like gods of freedom fighting
We hurled lightning bolts
At the throats of our captors
Kings of capital all
Refusing to live on our knees
Fought back standing tall
Refusing to fall
Under the fiercest blows
Of the fiercest foes
With fierce resistance we chose
To fight on
Till all are free
This history etched deep
In our memory
Comrade George
His brother Jonathan Jackson
Transformed revolutionary words
Into liberating action
Both assassinated
During August revolts
Refused to be deterred
By pigs or turncoats
Swaying in unison
To the people’s beat
For a month of days
We sit at our warrior’s feet
To continue the struggle
Down through history
Refusing to relent
Until we all are free
To recall all the lessons
Our ancestors taught us
Commemorate those events
Throughout the month of Black August