1619

They say it started way back in 1619/

When ebony colored men left their continent/

To go, see, feel, the land of the civilized/

Pale colored men who regarded themselves as fully Christianized/

The blacks were treated well and their black skins idolized/

But it took less than 20 years for their true colors to materialize/

They said, if these niggers worked for us, wouldn’t our profits increase in size/

After all even the Bible did realize and recognize/

That rich men had to have servants to add to their merchandise/

Thus began the rounding up of Africans from and wide/

Fellow blacks working for the white oppressors for a minimal prize/

And so the greatest atrocity in human history was in gear high/

Yet the African seed is one that can not be mollified/

The proud African race always held its head up high- dignified/

It spawned great men here in the motherland and in the Diaspora despite being victimized/

Waiyaki wa Hinga, Koitalel arap Samoei, Mekatilili wa Medza fought for the rights of the black man and for which they died/

Booker T Washington and his kind and like/

Educated black and colored children to enhance their pride/

Marcus Garvey envisaged an African paradise/

Kwame Nkrumah dreamt of a single African enterprise/

Martin Luther King Jr used peace to fight a system that did not want all races equally quantified/

Elijah Muhammad had his nation of blacks who were Islamized/

And Nelson Mandela spent years in prison to see his people free and their land unoccupied/

Yet again we have sold our souls and pearls have been cast to the swine/

I am watching CNN and from the south of Spain they are reporting live/

Scores of black bodies have been washed ashore by the sea tide/

And they are bloating right there under the sun by the seaside/

My heart misses a beat and for a moment my feelings die/

I gasp and look up to the skies/

And loudly ask myself, are we back to 1619?