Toni Morrison, original name Chloe Anthony Wofford, (born February 18, 1931, Lorain, Ohio, U.S.—died August 5, 2019,

It’s important, therefore, to know who the real enemy is, and to know the function, the very serious function of racism, which is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Someone says you have no art so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms and so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.

~ Toni Morrison

by James Madison Bell

Hail! hail thou glorious first!
Proud day of Liberty,
Thy dawning wakes the burst
Of India’s jubilee;
And calls to mind that happy morn
When Freedom’s thousand sons were born.

That morn, when o’er the main
Bless’d Freedom’s angel flew,
And rent each galling chain,
And loud her tocsin blew;
When hoary age became a boy,
And every heart leaped up for joy.

Hail! hail thou glorious day,
We greet thy blest return,
With speech and gladsome lay,
And fervent hearts, that burn
To join with those amid the sea,
Whose songs and shouts are Liberty!

Speed, Lord, the glorious day,
When o’er our native land
Fond Liberty shall sway
Her sceptre of command;
And every yoke and galling chain,
Shall vanish ‘neath her peaceful reign.

sources:

https://mypoeticside.com/show-classic-poem-2358