Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement

June Jordan

1977: Poem for Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer

JIM CROW: THE SEQUEL

We didn't always need affirmative action
When we broke this crazy land into farms
when we planted and harvested the crops
when we dug into the earth for water
when we carried that water into the
big house kitchens and bedrooms
when we built that big house
when we fed and clothed other people's
children with food we cooked and
served to other people's children, wearing
the garments that we fitted and we sewed
together, when we hacked and hauled
huge trees for lumber and fuel, when we
washed and polished the chandeliers,
when we bleached and pressed the linens
purchased by blood profits from our daily
forced laborings, when we lived under the
whip and in between the coffle and chains,
when we watched our babies sold away
from us, when we lost our men to
anybody's highest bidder, when slavery
defined our days and our prayers and our
nighttimes of no rest--then we did not
need affirmative action.

Like two-legged livestock we cost the
bossman three hundred and fifteen dollars
or six hundred and seventy-five dollars
so he provided for our keep
like two-legged livestock
penned into the parched periphery of very
grand plantation life. We did not need
affirmative action. NO! We needed
freedom: We needed overthrow,
revolution and a holy fire to purify the air.
But for two hundred years this crazy
land the law and the bullets behind the law
continued to affirm the gospel of
God-given White supremacy.
For two hundred years the law and the
bullets behind the law, and the money and
the politics behind the bullets behind the
law affirmed the gospel of
God-given White supremacy/
God-given male-White supremacy.

And neither the Emancipation Proclamation
nor the Civil War nor one constitutional
amendment after another nor one Civil Rights
legislation after another could bring about a
yielding of the followers of that gospel
to the beauty of our human face.

Justice don't mean nothin' to a
hateful heart!

And so we needed affirmative action. We
needed a way into the big house
besides the back door. We needed a chance at
the classroom and jobs and open housing
in okay neighborhoods.
We needed a way around the hateful hearts of
America. We needed more than freedom
because a piece of paper ain't the
same as opportunity
or education.
And some thirty years ago we agitated
and we agitated until the President said,
"We seek...
not just equality
as a right and a theory
but equality as a fact
and as a result."

And a great rejoicing rose like a spirit
dancing
fresh and happy on the soon-to-be-the-
integrated-and-most-uppity ballroom floor
of these United
States.
And Black folks everywhere dressed up in
African-American pride
and optimism.
From the littlest to the elders
we shined our shoes and brushed our hair
and got good and ready for
"equality as a fact." But
three decades later, and come to find out
we never got invited to the party
we never got included in "the people"
we never got no kind of affirmative action
worth more than a spit in the wind.

And yesterday
the new man
in the White House/
the new President declared,"What we have
done for women and minorities is a good
thing, but we must respond to those who
feel discriminated against...This is a
psychologically difficult time for the
so-called angry White man."
Well I am here to tell the world that
46 percent of my children living in poverty
does not feel good to me
and my brothers in prison and not in college
does not feel good to me
psychologically
or otherwise!

Catch that angry White man and tell him
"Get a grip!"

Forty-six percent of the American labor
force is constituted by White men but White
men occupy 95 percent of all senior
management positions!
And as a wise Black man
recently observed
"This supposedly beleaguered minority
(White males are about one-third of the
population) makes up 80 percent of the
Congress, four-fifths of tenured university
faculty, nine-tenths of the Senate
and 92 percent of the Forbes 400."

Tell me who's angry!

I say the problem with affirmative action
seems to me like way too much affirmative
talk and way too little action!

And unless you happen to belong to that
infinitesimal club of millionaire Black folks
got one hundred and eight thousand dollars
to throw into the campaign pot of their
nearest and dearest
full-time political racist,
I think you better join with me to agitate
and agitate for justice and
equality we can eat
and pay the rent with
NOW.

1977: POEM FOR MRS. FANNIE LOU HAMER

And failed to stop you.
Only God could but He
wouldn't stop
you
fortress from self-
pity

Humble as a woman anywhere
I remember finding you inside the laundromat
in Ruleville
lion spine relaxed/hell
what's the point to courage
when you washin clothes?

But that took courage

just to sit there/target
to the killers lookin
for your singin face
perspirey through the rinse
and spin

and later
you stood mighty in the door on James Street
loud callin:

"BULLETS OR NO BULLETS!
THE FOOD IS COOKED
AN' GETTIN COLD!"

We ate
A family tremulous but fortified
by turnips/okra/handpicked
like the lilies

filled to the very living
full
one solid gospel
(sanctified)

one gospel
(peace)

one full Black lily
luminescent
in a homemade field

of love

[from Directed By Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan 2005]

IN MEMORIAM: MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

honey people murder mercy U.S.A.
the milkland turn to monsters teach
to kill to violate pull down destroy
the weakly freedom growing fruit
from being born

America

tomorrow yesterday rip rape
exacerbate despoil disfigure
crazy running threat the
deadly thrall
appall belief dispel
the wildlife burn the breast
the onward tongue
the outward hand
deform the normal rainy
riot sunshine shelter wreck
of darkness derogate
delimit blank
explode deprive
assassinate and batten up
like bullets fatten up
the raving greed
reactivate a springtime
terrorizing

death by men by more
than you or I can

STOP

They sleep who know a regulated place
or pulse or tide or changing sky
according to some universal
stage direction obvious
like shorewashed shells

we share an afternoon of mourning
in between no next predictable
except for wild reversal hearse rehearsal
bleach the blacklong lunging
ritual of fright insanity and more
deplorable abortion
more and
more

[From Directed By Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan]