BY FORCE OF ARMS, WE SHALL OCERCOME (2026)

In ghettos
Quarantined isolated
Watched but never seen
Always hated
The ruling class, a special caste
They’re defined
As upper tier, but down here
We’re resigned
To exile in the land
Of our birth
With no protection, our complexion
Is seen first
It being worse, than any other
In the spectrum
For the lives of brothers, mothers hover
For our protection
But we don’t look
To protect them in return
Because disrespect and neglect
We have learned
Our hearts are hard, no regard
For our women
So they’re left, to fend for self
None defend them
Taught that everything Afrikan
Is cursed
So today we treat each other
Even worse
Than those who first
Fed us these lies
To reshape us, slave break us
Make us despise
Who we are, what we had
From whence we came
Our true history, it’s a mystery
Even our names
What could bend, the minds of men
To believe
They should kill a people, then steal a people
Out of greed

But we’re still here, not dumb must numb
By force of arms, we shall overcome
We’re still here, not dumb just numb
By force of arms we shall overcome

Held in bondage
For 12 generations
Less than 10 years
Of emancipation
A period called
Reconstruction
Then Amerika conspired
In its destruction
Lied about
Our liberation
Put Blacks as workers
Back in plantations
The white legacy
Raping our women and girls
As they flee history
Clutching their pearls

Amendments passed
Which legalized
Making slaves of those
Convicted of crimes
Then criminalized us
With those Black Codes
Robbed us of land jobs
Our abodes
Next came Jim Crow
Segregation
Denied our identity
As our own nation
White supremacy and terror
Torched the South
Poverty and lynchings
Forced us out
In search of jobs
We fled North and West
Filling positions
That white men left
In factories as they
Went off to war
For a brief spell, we did well
Not too poor
To meet our needs, our seeds
Were nourished
Based in Harlem
Black culture flourished
But the wars ended then
White men returned
To reclaim the jobs
Mobs came in and burned
Drowned our towns
In floods of blood
Then marched the streets
In sheets and hoods
A reign of terror
But we hit back
So they fled and left
The cities Black
The factories packed up
Jobs no more
Leaving us more poor
Than before

But, we’re still here, not dumb just numb
By force of arms, we shall overcome
We’re still here, not dumb just numb
By force of arms, we shall overcome

In the North and South
We united our fights
For Black Liberation
And Civil Rights
Our struggles backed
By world socialism
China and Russia united with us
Against them
Joined our fight to end
Racism
The identity of the enemy
U.S. imperialism
The Panthers rose
Our greatest formation
To the FBI the greatest threat
To the nation
This is why pig subversion
Kicked in
Attacked our movement
So we wouldn’t win

Misdefined it with spin
And propaganda
Maligned our leaders
With lies and slander
Our liberation struggles
Still unfulfilled
Revolutionaries exiled captured
And killed
Replaced with puppets
To keep us calmer
The likes of Jessie, Sharpton
Barack Obama
Replaced our role models
With clowns thanks to
Blacksploitation films
Telling us be gangstas
Like the white mafia then Scarface
And Shottas
Dumping dope in the hood
Leaving us in gutters

But we’re still here, not dumb just numb
By force of arms, we shall overcome
We’re still here, not dumb just numb
By force of arms, we shall overcome

Then our music was infiltrated
Coopted
Artists down to sell out
Promoted by their market
Reduced to a culture
Of crime sex and violence
Social mores destroyed
Conscious voices silenced
The empire struck Black
Put us back on plantations
This round of attack
Mass incarceration
Of revolutionary leaders
They’d grown wary
So they were isolated purged
Thrown in solitary
The masses left to scatter
Like a herd in confusion
To be misled by opportunists
Chasing fads and illusions
Our hoods left in shambles
Then came gentrification
We were pushed out
As whites and condos replaced them
Our young robbed of vision
Don’t aspire to be free
Replaced their fire with desires
For shopping sprees
But we’re still here
Not dumb just numb
The Ancestors still beat
Our freedom drum
Keeping the torch lit
For each generation
Still educating agitating
Watching and waiting