Once upon a time in a land of cotton, we were a people the world thought time had forgotten
The world thought we were ignorant, but we had no choice but to prove our dominance
We were already scholars with great cultures. You swooped in and thought since our skin was black, we must have no value, sold for just a few dollars
In our ancient civilizations, we had already paved the way to knowledge
Then you came along and decided that you could take our Motherland hostage
You stole us and made us slaves, made to live like animals, working hard with our broken bodies destined for the grave
You let us build America and claimed all the reward
What you did not realize was our determination to walk free, that was our mission to walk towards
You sent our families to Portugal, Spain, the Caribbean islands, Muslim nations, and to America, the last stop in the existence of pain
We had already built what you had not even dreamed about
We built temples, pyramids, and mighty cities, while you were still building log cabins
Lawyers and doctors were in our blood long before you arrived
Now you want to suppress us, again. But our intelligence won’t
be suppressed
You talk of reparation as though it will quench our thirst
You need to realize that the petty existence you call life will never change because everything you do; we did first
You incarcerate our young black males to control our race
Then you walk around wondering why we are still smiling, pride on our face
If your institution of slavery did not break our spirits, what have you now
We laugh because we walk forward. While you now wonder what you can do to stop us from arriving at our destiny

It reads:

“Give me your tired, your weak,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”.

Lady Liberty has not spoken those words to us. She is a totem pole overshadowed by the systemic racism that deformed the American dream.

You must always remember, America was never America to us
Our huddled masses suffered in the belly of a ship, disease, and vermin feeding on us
If a black man had ever spoken the words,” Give me liberty or give me death.”
His tongue would still be warm with the phrase when his body hit the ground.
No! America will never be America to us, we have lost too many of our people, but you still look at us as less than you
What you don’t realize is we never had to prove how smart we are
All we needed was time to show how intelligent you are, not