SO YOUNG BACK IN ACCRA

Julia Wright met W.E.B. Du Bois, when she was very young.

to the Free Mumia Youth movement

in memory of my one and only meeting with W.E.B. DuBois

i was so young
back in Accra
so young
that learning journalism
at the feet
of the African liberation movements
i did not realize
i had stumbled into
History

i was so young
back in Accra
so young
that standing next
to Auntie Dorothy Padmore
in a Pan African kitchen
learning how to make
ginger chicken
and
to write about neo colonialism
did not go down
in any diary

i was so young
back in Accra
so young
that when I was introduced
to W.E.B. DuBois
in his wheelchair
i was so shy
i did not know what to say

but in hindsight
i remember
standing there
in Black Star Square
to hear his last words :
“Time is Long”
and
an elder now
i am still here
to pass them on
to those
who are still
so young
back
in Amerikkka

BREAKING SILENCE

One of our top objectives next to respecting the time factor and building unity is breaking silence.
For the Mumia Youth Movement

we are the ocean
perennially
breaking silence
confronting the cliffs
with our loudspeaker waves
noisily
eroding the status quo of rocks
until
we disintegrate them

we break silence

we are the plants and the trees
who communicate
exchanging
defense secrets
against predators

we are the People
always breaking silence

do you hear the billowing
of the flags
of our reclaimed land?

do you hear the shouts
of the children
on our shoulders
in the crowd?

do you hear our chants
our stories
our spoken word
our poetry
echoing
through the world?

do you hear
the eloquent determination
of those
who are not intimidated
by high falutin’ Awards?

do you hear the footsteps
of our ancestors
immemorial?

do you hear our deafening voices
drowning out
their drones?

do you hear
the higher note of our Love Supreme
burst the brittle glass
of white supremacy?

do you hear ?

DEAD CHILD WALKING

For the Mumia Youth Movement

in the US of A,
the Kansas Department for Child
and Families
looked the other way
as a seven year old
Black boy
Adrian Jones
was starved and tortured
by dysfunctional relatives
who threw
his remains to their pigs

“Mommy and Daddy can’t feed me”
he kept telling
the State

not so far away
in New Orleans
fat rats
grow high
nibbling
on marijuana evidence
in decrepit police headquarters

meanwhile
in Gaza
ravenous children
cannot survive
on
birdseed
and animal fodder

and
around the corner
in occupied West Bank
a twelve year old Palestinian child
Rami Al Halhouli
who was celebrating Ramadan
playing with a firework
is murdered by the IDF
in front of our eyes –
another Tamir Rice –
whose body pierced by
a bullet made in USA
is withheld by the police
as the family is ordered
to hold a small funeral
or else

in the genocidal and blood lusty
eyes of imperialism
all remains of childhood
must be cleansed
from Palestine
and
from all lands
on the wrong side
of the Apartheid line

anything
in the hands
of a dead child walking –
a dusty fistful of grief
an orange
a kite
a reaching back to home
digging for a remembered scrap of food
in the rubble
a doll’s dress for a white flag
even the semblance of a dream –
is the mark of a verboten freedom
the colonizer
throws hungrily
into the unbound pen
of the feeding frenzy
of his killology

Adrian
Rami
Tamir
Emmett
and the legion of our child ancestors –
we march
to the happy skips
of your ageless Hope

https://youtube.com/shorts/9fGPhEJL4OI?si=90xqc0x5KjJjIScZ
The little girl and the orange

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBkNDNj05XA
Israel Security Minister praises officer for shooting dead 12-year old. BBC News. March 14th 2024

https://apnews.com/article/new-orleans-rats-eating-marijuana-02cf5d760649033801b775b41a96d5df?utm_source=TMP-Newsletter&utm_campaign=55bdf43660-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_03_15_10_54
New Orleans rats eat marijuana

Fighting Words

Journal of the Communist Workers league

SO YOUNG BACK IN ACCRA | BREAKING SILENCE | DEAD CHILD WALKING

Poems by renowned Black leader and activist Julia Wright