(The Virtues and Imperatives of “Good Trouble”)
Never give up; never give in; keep your eyes on the prize*
A sharecropper’s son,
He was no stranger to the buffets of Fortune
Offspring of a caste so habitually abused
He told his blind, demeaning country: I AM A MAN
Those Forty Acres and a Mule
Never left the page on which
Their pledge was scribbled. The demobilized
Hordes of ‘free’ Negro humanity
Wandered, homeless, in a strange American wilderness
Below the poverty line, below the Law
Quarry of lynch mobs, separate, so unequal
Their very humanity the subject of perverse debate
From an abyss so abominable
A stubborn Hope emerged
The future clear before its gaze
Its rousing song was Freedom Now
Tear gas and water cannon served the chorus to that song
With refrains by vicious dogs and bloody batons
Prisons brimming with Freedom Warriors
And the staccato rash of targeted assassinations . . . .
Yours, John, is the legacy of Good Trouble
Of boundless courage and the noble fight
From the Boy from Troy to the Conscience of Congress,
Your talk was clear, your walk was steady
Beyond hate
Above despair
Paragon of courage and candor
Who saw the rainbow behind the cloud
The Selma Bridge now wears a different paint
Its lineaments glittering in the Southern sun
Even as we keep on striving for the final lifting of
That knee on the Negro neck
* From one of John Lewis’s speeches
Niyi Osundare is one of Africa’s foremost poets and academics.
