<html aria-label="message body"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><span style="font-size: 22px;">For My People</span><div style="font-size: 22px;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">For my people everywhere singing their slave songs</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> repeatedly: their dirges and their ditties and their blues </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> and jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> unknown god, bending their knees humbly to an</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> unseen power;</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">For my people lending their strength to the years, to the </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> gone years and the now years and the maybe years,</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> washing ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> hoeing plowing digging planting pruning patching</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> dragging along never gaining never reaping never</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> knowing and never understanding;</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">For my playmates in the clay and dust and sand of Alabama</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> backyards playing baptizing and preaching and doctor</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> and jail and soldier and school and mama and cooking</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> and playhouse and concert and store and hair and Miss</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> Choomby and company;</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">For the cramped bewildered years we went to school to learn </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> to know the reasons why and the answers to and the</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> people who and the places where and the days when, in</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> memory of the bitter hours when we discovered we</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> were black and poor and small and different and nobody</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> cared and nobody wondered and nobody understood;</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">For the boys and girls who grew in spite of these things to</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> be man and woman, to laugh and dance and sing and</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> play and drink their wine and religion and success, to</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> marry their playmates and bear children and then die</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> of consumption and anemia and lynching;</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">For my people thronging 47th Street in Chicago and Lenox</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> Avenue in New York and Rampart Street in New</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> Orleans, lost disinherited dispossessed and happy</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> people filling the cabarets and taverns and other</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> people’s pockets needing bread and shoes and milk and</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> land and money and something—something all our own;</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">For my people walking blindly spreading joy, losing time</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> being lazy, sleeping when hungry, shouting when</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> burdened, drinking when hopeless, tied, and shackled</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> and tangled among ourselves by the unseen creatures</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> who tower over us omnisciently and laugh;</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">For my people blundering and groping and floundering in</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> the dark of churches and schools and clubs and</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> societies, associations and councils and committees and </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> conventions, distressed and disturbed and deceived and</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> devoured by money-hungry glory-craving leeches,</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> preyed on by facile force of state and fad and novelty, by</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> false prophet and holy believer;</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding,</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people,</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> all the faces, all the adams and eves and their countless</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> generations;</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> generation full of courage issue forth; let a people</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> in our spirits and our blood. Let the martial songs</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> rise and take control.</span></div><div style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></div><div style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Margaret Walker</span></div></div></body></html>