During his time on The View, he said that, if Martin Luther King had lived, Donald Trump would not be President of the United States. He said that the United States is still recovering from the assassination of Dr. King, fifty years later. Yet, despite having white supremacists marching in the streets of contemporary America, despite the "shithole" in the Oval Office, Representative Lewis said that he still has hope. He said that we can't lose hope, or else we have already lost.
So, in honor of this day, I give you a poem by June Jordan, It's a howl of a poem, full of anger and righteousness. I imagine Jordan standing in the middle of a church, fists raised, yelling these words at the top of her lungs. There's no real form to it. It's all pain. Fury.
Saint Marty is not losing hope, Mr. Lewis.
In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.
by: June Jordan
I
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
II
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
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