The Votings Right Act Part 3: When Race Becomes Politics – Poem
They Changed the Map but Not the Game The law was signed to change the land, to break the grip of Southern hands, so Black Americans could finally stand, with equal rights the law had planned. For years the South denied the vote, with threats and fear at every poll, through crooked laws and shifting goals, they fought to keep us from control. They changed the map but not the game, just gave the old rules newer names, and hid old power behind new claims, while saying race was not to blame. No burning cross stood in the square, no sheriff’s dogs were waiting there, yet maps were drawn with careful care, to split Black voices everywhere. In Tennessee the lines were split, in Alabama courts still sit, while Louisiana battles it, and race hides deep in politics. They changed the map but not the game, just gave the old rules newer names, and hid old power behind new claims, while saying race was not to blame. The lines were drawn to shift the weight, to move the power, seal the fate, to guard old power within the state, while courts still wrestle claims of hate. The old attacks were harsh and plain, today they hide through laws and claims, through maps designed to shift the game, while saying race was not the aim. And if we fail to teach what’s true, the past returns in something new, because old fears still travel through the laws and maps we still live through. They changed the map but not the game, just gave the old rules newer names, and hid old power behind new claims, while saying race was not to blame. Eric Lawrence Frazier Poet
The Voting Rights Act Part 2: Have We Forgotten Why the Voting Rights Act Exists?
Have We Forgotten? Have we forgotten the bridge and the blows? Have we forgotten the fear Black folks know? Have we forgotten the blood and the cries? Have we forgotten America’s lies? My grandmother lived through laws that told her where she could not stand, where she could not eat or vote, where she was unwelcome in this land. My grandfather worked through pain while carrying dreams he could not touch, because in the eyes of many Americans his Black skin alone was simply too much. Have we forgotten the bridge and the blows? Have we forgotten the fear Black folks know? Have we forgotten the blood and the cries? Have we forgotten America’s lies? They said the Constitution promised freedom, said justice belonged to every man, yet Black Americans kept discovering their “freedom” came with a backhand. A hand that blocked the ballot box, a hand that enforced the racial line, a hand that called oppression “order” while stealing dignity one law at a time. Have we forgotten the bridge and the blows? Have we forgotten the fear Black folks know? Have we forgotten the blood and the cries? Have we forgotten America’s lies? There were children raised in terror, raised hearing hatred at the door, raised watching crosses burn and Black men hang because America allowed the horror. There were fathers forced to whisper, “There are places you should not go,” because freedom in this country depended on what white people would allow you to know. Have we forgotten the bridge and the blows? Have we forgotten the fear Black folks know? Have we forgotten the blood and the cries? Have we forgotten America’s lies? I was bused across the city to a school far from my home, a Black child inside a history I was too young then to fully know. I sat inside those classrooms as the only Black face anyone could see, living through federal integration without anybody explaining it to me. Have we forgotten the bridge and the blows? Have we forgotten the fear Black folks know? Have we forgotten the blood and the cries? Have we forgotten America’s lies? A nation without memory becomes a nation led by fear, where truth is slowly buried more deeply every year. And when the past is forgotten, its truth is soon replaced, because history left untended becomes history erased. Now I speak to my grandchildren while they are still young enough to hear, because silence between generations has cost our people far too dear. I want them to know the story, to know what people sacrificed to do, so nobody can rewrite the suffering or hide what this country put us through. Have we forgotten the bridge and the blows? Have we forgotten the fear Black folks know? Have we forgotten the blood and the cries? Have we forgotten America’s lies? Eric Lawrence Frazier Poet
THE TREE KNOWS – POEM
The tree does not debate the river. It does not gather the other trees together to construct arguments proving the water exists. It drinks. It receives. It stands in silent participation with something older than memory and deeper than language. Its leaves do not resist the wind. They move with it, yielding without shame, dancing without fear, as though surrender itself were wisdom. And I stand before it, sixty-four years old, a preacher of sermons, a carrier of scriptures, a defender of doctrines I inherited before I inherited consciousness itself, and suddenly I realize the tree may understand something I do not. Not intellectually. Not philosophically. Not through books or councils or creeds. But through being. The river was flowing before the tree understood it. The sun was shining before human beings developed language to describe it. Life was already happening before we built religions explaining life. And somewhere in the silence between the bark and the leaves, between the roots and the water, between the wind and the movement, I sense a form of knowing so ancient and intuitive that human thought cannot fully reach it. The tree knows exactly what it is. Not with words. Not with theology. Not with argument. It simply participates in existence without dividing itself against existence. And perhaps that is why I cannot stop thinking about it. Because after all the sermons, all the scriptures, all the debates, all the inherited certainties, all the attempts to explain God, life, death, suffering, salvation, eternity, and the strange burden of being human, I find myself longing not for more answers, but for more harmony. More stillness. More awareness. More presence. Somewhere deep within myself beyond fear, beyond doctrine, beyond performance, beyond the desperate need to always be certain, I know intuitively that I want to become more like that tree. A living thing standing quietly beside the river, fully alive, fully present, fully participating in the mystery of existence. A. Eric Lawrence Frazier Poet
THE END OF AN ERA: Part One — Callais and the Quiet Burial of the Voting Rights Act – Poem
Before They Erased the Story Slaves were freed when the war was done,yet the hatred of us was not done,Emancipation kept us on the run,our fight for real freedom had just begun. The law declared that we could vote,but much of America answered “No,”with threats and fear at every poll,our votes were stolen, denied our role. The price was paid with tears and cries,with broken bones and stolen lives,now truth is drowned beneath new lies,while fading history slowly dies. There were children raised in fear,with burning crosses drawing near,Black bodies hanging year by year,while mobs stood watching without tears. The schools were poor, the roads were worn,our hopes were bruised, our pride was torn,yet every child that still was borncarried dreams despite the scorn. The price was paid with tears and cries,with broken bones and stolen lives,now truth is drowned beneath new lies,while fading history slowly dies. When children do not know the pain,the lies return and rise again,and buried truth left unexplainedbecomes a wound passed down in shame. Because forgotten sacrificebecomes the ground where hatred thrives,and rights once bought through blood and criescan slowly die before our eyes. I can see the marchers walk,the praying, singing, freedom talk,the beaten bodies bruised and mauled,while hate swung clubs to make them fall. Now I speak so kids can know,what hatred tried to hide below,because forgotten truths grow old,when history’s pain is left untold. The price was paid with tears and cries,with broken bones and stolen lives,now truth is drowned beneath new lies,while fading history slowly dies. Eric Lawrence Frazier Poet
