Black or White

In R.E. we listened to a song called the Death of Emmet Till by Bob Dylan and it really upset me. The story is of a young black boy from Chicago whistled at a white women, the men who saw this happen locked him in a barn and tortured him before drowning him in lake. Even though the men confessed to murdering poor Emmet Till, the murderers new the men on jury, who were also racist, and they were never convicted. The song by Bob Dylan is on the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXgKdNX90Ww

The story got me thinking and wrote this poem.

White hooded ghosts haunt the night                                                            

Screams of terror darken light                                                                                               

Everywhere you go everywhere you look                                                     

Black bodies swinging of those cruelly took                                                             

Burning crosses on your door

Black blood spilt upon your floor

Dreams late at night make sleep impossible

Daily torture from whites unstoppable

What they did can not be changed

The past wiped and rearranged

At least we all know what can happen

If we let go of others let dreams flatten

None of us want this to happen again

So let us all remember, not in vain

It was our people, it was our blood

That made blacks suffer fell down with a thud

We let others die

 Don’t hold your head high

It’s time to fight back

Whether you’re white or black