ACTIVIST POEM: Our Ayes Will Have It

She had
Enough
Of half-baked politicians
She kneaded democracy
Here and now
As the yeast she could do
Sounding off
To those who might
Listen
Wee choir not
A grand stand
To lift every voice and sing
Wringing well
The harmonies of liberty
However aloud the rolling sees
Our ayes will have it

This poem is a tribute to the enduring importance of movement politics as the truest driving force for social and political change, working for justice for all. This poem is a tribute to political activists who do most of their work outside formal electoral politics. Such action is centered out of the direct lived experiences of broken hearts and broken lives as opposed to white papers and think tanks.

Most people of privilege and power will roll their eyes when hope dares rise from despairing circumstances to demand justice, aka “too much.” “They just don’t get it” the condescension goes, as if people on the short end of power don’t know how the world works. “Not getting it” may be true inasmuch as the powers that be have “it” and don’t give anything but a shit. Mainstream politics is almost by definition reactionary. The fear of losing “it” at best and organized greed at worst, short-circuits justice in our so-called democracy for countless minorities (disenfranchised folks of every stripe), which deeply ironically comprise a majority of our nation. If the 1% are masters of anything, they are masters of dividing an overwhelming majority of the populace against each other to assure that none of their many legitimate grievances are fully redressed. Fear of losing whatever one has sides with frightening regularity with the increasingly routinely vain hope of “upward” mobility, aligning itself with organized greed, all to avoid earnestly casting one’s lot with the poor and disenfranchised.

All of this breaks my heart — not my will or hope. This poem alludes to the rousing song, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which is often referred to as the “Black American National Anthem.” This song beautifully embodies and honors in music and lyric the undying hope and ultimate commitments arising like a phoenix out of countless inhumanities and death itself to keep our eyes unwaveringly on the prize: justice for all. This song was written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) in 1899 and set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954) in 1900, the lyrics of which are:

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise,
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest, our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee,
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.