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In you the caravan trod
In line with the merchant chants-
'Bound in a sheaf of dreams
A black man in a nigger suit
Here at your view
In you the wagon trails
Across the forgotten part-
'Standing in a pulpit
A rambling preacher
downed with a bullet'
in you I smelled my odor
from the stench of the hold-
'the sound of a captive voice
echoes our shackled fear
across the shadeless grass
in you sisterhood awakes again
the voice of a kitchen mammy-
'the rich laughter of a Negro maiden
in a song our fathers sang
taking us home again
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PART -ONE
Joseph in the bible
said to martin in the history book
'I am white you are black'
but our color here had no barrier
I have people who love you
So let us shake hand a little
Over it-
So he took of his coat of many colors
And showed martin
What color really meant-
I too said Joseph
I too was a slave
My travail was worse of than yours
Being sold by your own kin
These you live with
Eat sleep and dream with
From your fathers sperm
One with you
Sold you off for twenty manilas-
Freedom is more than a notion
or an act of state
it is an altitude that embraces all races,
imagine the wagons wheel that brought you
Into the nigga pen is the same as the
caravan wheel that sold me off as a slave,
we speak freedom when we stop judging each other
by oddities
we talk freedom when we see with new eyes
and allow our selves and others to be what we truly are
'a color that has no passport'…
OURSELVES…
PART FOUR
I am not the white man of yore
The darkest existence of man enormity to man
I am the white man here before you
enslaved against ones will…
DON'T HATE ME
My color has been a part of your enslavement
But I am not the massa of yore
The really people you needed to rage against
Are they who are blacks and deny being black…
If wishes were abracadabra
I'd wish for someone just like me
In my coat of many colors…
gathering sheaves of souls,
Martins JR the dreamer-
said to Joseph in the bible'
you are an individual but I am a race
you are an individual who once was a slave
'I am a RACE who still is a slave'
though there are no chains in our hands today
just tell me what is freedom-just tell me
what is freedom without being free…
I was a slave but now is a prince,
JR said'
I became a prince when I learned to act my dreams
I was a slave
And while yet a slave I was free
For freedom lies in our heart
Not in deed-
The 'freed man' is a state of mind
The key lies within you
to recognize you are free
I can't give it to you
The recognition of your civil right
You cannot wait for someone
to open a door whose key belong to you…
