The Fourth of July
What do we have to celebrate on the Fourth of July?
For us, for us it is a day of infamy, deceit and hypocrisyDo we celebrate the middle passage with the bones of our martyrs at the bottom of the ocean?
Do we celebrate the rape of our women and boys?
Do we celebrate the whipping of our beloved ancestors?
Do we celebrate the lynching of our forefathers and foremothers?
Do we celebrate the Jim Crow laws which chained us to a life filled with shit?
Do we celebrate the 6000 African-Americans lynched by racist terrorists and no one was ever punished?
Oh Lord, we celebrate Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, and Malcom X
We celebrate Toussant, Louveture, Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner
We celebrate Tecumseh, Sitting Bull, and Geronimo, who always resisted white genocide
We celebrate Crazyhorse’s fighting war cry “It’s a good day to die!”
We celebrate the resistance of our black people to their chains
We celebrate our resistance from birth to the grave
We celebrate African-American colleges which educated our people
We celebrate the spirituals, the blues, and the jazz, which brought joy to the world
We celebrate our black churches who practice Christianity better than “masta’s” blasphemy
We celebrate the survival of our people born with a rope around their neck and chains around their legs
We celebrate Rosa Parks, who sat down so that we could all stand up
We celebrate my family’s friend, Fanny Lou Hamer, who was sick and tired of being sick and tired
We celebrate the Deacons for Defense
We celebrate Cesar Chavez who uplifted the farmworkers
We celebrate the Brown Berets, the NAACP, SNCC, and the Black Panthers
We celebrate the spirit of the Panther which now sleeps but will one day wake up
We celebrate our children and grandchildren who will continue to resist racism, sexism, imperialism, and tyranny
That is why we celebrate the Fourth of July