Where are my brothers’ compensations?

For not just the mule and the acres,

But the slavery and degradation.

For the trans-atlantic Transportation 

And the inhumane humiliation. 

Where is it for my sisters and all others?

For their fathers and their mothers?

Where is the strap on their boots?

Where are their just-dues?

For the million lashes that beleaguered backs broken,

For the thousands who died in the seas wracked open,

For the ropes tied to trees,

Only to make strange fruit swing limp, in the breeze.

Where are their reparations?

For the redlines drawn in blood,

For the towns sunk in mud,

For the helpless killed in floods,

For the crow that pecked the body of what was free but still beaten,

For the green woods burned to cinder by bombs of the air,

While our flag was still there?

For the dead lives gone to dust,

For the pounds cut from us.

Not just the children of the freedmen,

But every American still breathing

Who feels the weight they took from our beacon,

Our Lady Liberty, Our Lady Freedom

They carved at her flesh and left her indecent

Her wounds still open, will She ever know healing?

When will the promise, so old, be fulfilled?

All men created equal,

Life, Liberty, and property for all

Who live under the battered red, white, and blue.

When will what’s due, finally be given?

When will that bootstrap finally be fitted?

For the brothers, the sisters, the old, and the children,

Where is their payback for the lie that they’ve lived in?