"No Revolutionary movement is complete without its poetic expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses, they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, fears, and hopes the loves and hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by the joyous , defiant singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement; it is the dogma of the few and not the faith of the multitude"
-James Connolly 1907
-James Connolly 1907
so
true of the spirituals
true of the spirituals
thru the eternal spring
of struggle heard in each sung
word of "lift every voice & sing" thru
too to
many down blue black folk
songs about personal strife
& unjust wrongs in life
up to & thru the tell it like it 't'is of "we
the people" in "we
shall overcome"
& we have
we are
& shall (& then some!)
because from whatever
nat turner's & john brown's comrades
sang up thru the revolutionary internationale
choral singing of human rights
anthems from/to our hearts'
two-four or march-time's four-four time
always helps to righteously rite out wrong
everett hoagland
Kwanzaa 2011
