The writing’s on the wall;
stones and sticks and clay and bricks
tell the stories of our history
written in blood and sweat and thousands of tears
I sit in the quiet of the memory hall,
feeling my throat close up and tears start to flow;
how could it be that a people like me
were treated like less than dirt under my feet
I read about how they painted in song
and wrote stories on stone walls, making their
voices known as only they could
dreams shared by entire generations
almost wiped out by white skinned men
who came from afar on a ship with flags
and guns and bibles and a foreign tongue
We watched you from the shore, we
greeted you and welcomed you with
smiles and meals
You smiled back, the greed showing on your gnashing teeth
On our sacred land, where we were born free
they came and beat us, chained us and took what was ours
made us pay for what we farmed and what we sowed
Our mothers and fathers watered the soil with their blood
from it grew the bones of ancestors
the bones we used to make bows and arrows and
found ourselves fighting for land that was ours to begin with
I am an African! I can hear the screams
I am of this earth, and of this sky and of this land
I am an African!
From the earth we were born
sold as slaves as a child
We are also human they say
while they tie us to a donkey, a horse
the heartbeat of the earth beating beneath our bare feet
The only sign we are still alive
You struck us, you tried to belittle us
you put a price on our humanity
but we rose up ; we marched and we fought back
And now we are here
Telling the stories you tried to make us forget
But we have not forgotten and
we will beat the drums
and sing the songs and
write the stories of our heritage
