WINSLOW TOWNSHIP RECOGNIZES BLACK HISTORY MONTH. AREA HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT PRESENTS HIS POETRY DURING A RECENT MAYOR AND TOWNSHIP COMMITTEE MEETING.

By Hasan Babb
Email: Snoopy22289@msn.com

Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe/
Hard for me to conceive/
That my people sometimes, crawled on their knees/
Swam through swamps, and climbed through trees/
Kept on runnin even when it was hard to breath/
They kept on runnin/
Kept on runnin through the unsure darkness of the night/
Kept on runnin even when their legs were shaking and trembling from fright/
They kept on runnin at a time when a star in the sky was the only sign of hope in sight/
They kept on runnin/
They were runnin towards freedom/
Runnin from people who since they never seen it, thought it was a myth that they just couldn't believe in/
They were runnin even when their own people were stabbing them in the backs and deceiving them/
And they would sell them back to the master/
Sell them back to the trade/
Sell them back to the hardship/
They would sell them back as a slave/
Many lost hope, and many lost their lives/
But many kept the fire burning, and many found the will to survive/
It’s crazy to think that they ran all the way from the south to the north/
When many of us today are too lazy to walk from the couch to the corner store/
Not even runnin at top speeds/
Could get me freed/
From the mental shackles they have placed on my people, forcing us to believe/
That we aren't able, or even capable to achieve/
And that’s crazy to me/
Because ever since we’ve been freed/
We’ve taken steps and fought for equality, because that’s what we believed/
It was a movement, we took it from the buses to the courts/
Something so strong that the newspapers and channels had no choice but to report/
We fought for education, we fought for jobs/
We fought for women who didn’t just wana stay home and be housewives/
But somewhere between the Last Poets of then and the 50 Cents of today/
The movement got misplaced, misused, mangled, and thrown away/
And instead of progress, we’ve regressed/
Putting our society under massive stress/
Kids with the twisted mind sets, that bad means good/
And that since they were born, and live in, that they must die in the hood/
And now they don’t even want to be doctors or lawyers, our young girls wana be “gold diggers”/
And the guys think that selling drugs is the only possible way to make six figures/
And instead of reading up on history, and allowing their vocabulary’s to grow bigger/
They encourage ignorance, and not knowing, and that’s the true definition of a _____/

But then they always runnin to you for a solution/
Well that’s a good question, what is “the solution”/
The solution is simple, and that’s to stop the pollution/
Stop glorifying the negative images that our society is producing/
Open a book and start reducing, the number of illiterate men/
This isn’t difficult, you just need to know where to begin/
Start in the family, start with a stable and secure household/
Start up a legitimate business, decrease the number of drugs being sold/
Our young girls need to learn how to respect themselves/
But at the same time fathers need to teach their sons not to disrespect females
Get rid of the guns, cuz they’re just not cool/
Somehow find the funds, to support our public schools/
The murders the thefts, they lead nowhere but death/
Or else incarcerated with twenty-five to nothing left/
And stop cursing in front of little children, it destroys their innocence/
This list goes on and on, but I think I’m leave you in suspense/
Cuz we’ve been runnin ever since we’ve gotten off of the boats, you can check our timelines/
But it seems like now we’re not even in the game, we sitting on the sidelines/
I was born to be a “good leader” “Hasan Malik”, I think Bilal knew that when he brought his son in/
So if you tryna follow me you better keep up, cuz I’m not walking, I’m runnin/


Copyright Hasan Babb 2006; All rights are reserved.

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