We Are Survivors
The legacy of my people
Has no equal.
We’ve always been divine
And a gift to mankind.
Snatched from our native land
Put on slave ships
Treated like animals
Beaten with a bullwhip
Naked and chained together.
Across the Atlantic we came
To live and die a slave.
Many were scarred and maimed
Some of us died
And took our own lives.
But through it all
Most of us survived
Being chained on a ship
Sitting in our own bowels and piss.
How strong we had to be
To survive all of this,
Then to be auctioned and sold.
So we picked cotton and cut cane
And lived in a shack
Ate the scraps from a pig,
But no disease did we attract.
Thousands of natives were killed
By the disease called Small Pox.
Somehow Blacks survived
We were the ones God had not forgot
After six hundred years of being here
We’ve seen diseases come and go.
Some of us died.
Most of us found ways to grow.
After slavery they tried to kill us
Anyway they could.
So they became a human disease
Covered in sheets wearing a hood.
Many of us were hung, shot,
Or beat to death.
But our lives are like the wind
We are the best of God’s breath.
It seems the slave merchants
Didn’t know
Just how precious their cargo was.
Despite everything they did to kill us
We still showered the world
With love.
It seems every generation
Has to deal with a new disease.
Instead of us dying,
We’re multiplying
And enjoying the growth
Of our seeds.
We work with Mother Nature
And our ancestors protect us, too.
We’re here on Earth
To make a difference
In the things we say and do.
The legacy of my people
Has no equal.
We’ve always been divine
And a gift to all mankind.
4.2.20
- Abiodun Oyewole’s Open House with African-American Poets - 10/01/2021
- The African American Father - 06/21/2020
- The Responsibility of the African American Athlete - 06/12/2020