Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. is not the first American freedom fighter. Many came before him to pave the way, yet his legacy is on of the most well known and celebrated around the world. The impact on his life is undeniable, and his wisdom is still relevant and valuable today. While it is tempting to distill his work to a painless catchphrase, his liberation work still challenges us all to becoming the Beloved Community that his dream encompassed.
5 Poems by 5 Black Poets That Honor The King For Real
Martin Luther King Jr. has inspired millions of people throughout the world, including artists. BLACKSTEW has compiled five poems from the last 50 years to illustrate how his legacy lives on.
5 Poems By 5 Black Poets That Honor The King For Real
By BLACKSTEW
Black people have been fighting for basic human rights and freedom from the ills of—to use a term from bell hooks—imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy for centuries. Born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is known as one of the most important figures of movements that centered the rights of Black folks in America.
A lesser known fact about Dr. King is that he was friends with and deeply influenced by the poetry of Langston Hughes. Similarly, Hughes wrote poetry about King’s work. Hughes’s influence on King was so profound that traces of his poetry have been identified in some of Dr. King’s most important speeches. Some poignant examples are King referring to himself as the “victim of deferred dreams” in “A Christmas Sermon for Peace,” and affirming “Life for none of us has been a crystal stair” at Montgomery, Alabama’s Holt Street Baptist Church in November 1956. Both derive from Hughes’s poems, “Harlem” and “Mother to Son.”
The relationship between art and politics is well-documented, but it’s meaningful to consider Dr. King’s relationship to Hughes as an embodiment of that natural manifestation.
On his birthday, here are five poems by Black poets commemorating Dr. King:
“Martin Luther King Jr” by Gwendolyn Brooks
Brooks offers a moving portrait of King the man, the leader and the legacy:
A man went forth with gifts.
He was a prose poem.
He was a tragic grace.
He was a warm music.
He tried to heal the vivid volcanoes.
His ashes are
reading the world.
His Dream still wishes to anoint
the barricades of faith and of control.
His word still burns the center of the sun
above the thousands and the
hundred thousands.
The word was Justice. It was spoken.
So it shall be spoken.
So it shall be done.
Liberation and Pizza
Neighborhood hangouts are an important part of a sense of belonging. It’s a space where one connects with neighbors and finds space to be there full selves. Reporter Brandon Drenson highlights how Beech Grove Pizza has created a place for the LGBTQIA2S+ community to feel at home.
317 Project: Beech Grove pizza shop is a place of liberation for LGBTQ community
By Brandon Drenson
There’s a pizza shop in Beech Grove where Sam Cooke plays on the kitchen radio, while above the door, a taped photo of shirtless David Hasselhoff watches over.
Daisy Gomez, a cook there, preps pizza prior to opening.
She has cotton-candy pink hair, powder blue eyes, two gauged ears and a nose ring. She’s in a heterosexual relationship but identifies as bisexual.
Gomez considers herself “lucky.”
Lucky to work at Beech Grove Pizza Company, she said, because, “here, everyone’s sexuality is something that’s celebrated.”
Remember the Liberators
For the next three months, we at Common Good Collective will be reflecting on those in the United States, and around the world, who have dedicated their lives to the liberation of all. Brave people from every race, ethnicity, gender, orientation, and ability have struggled to obtain the freedoms we enjoy today, and they continue to do so. We draw inspiration from their lives and stories. We also join the struggle, in small and large ways, knowing that great change only happens by the power of the collective.
“Appalachian Elegy”
Among the many creatives, thinkers, and other heroic figures that have transitioned this winter is the incomparable bell hooks. hooks was a love evangelist, preaching the iron-clad beauty of compassion in the form of poetry and prose. Below is a gorgeous dedication to her home state and community of Kentucky.
Appalachian Elegy (Sections 1-6)
By bell hooks
1.
hear them cry
the long dead
the long gone
speak to us
from beyond the grave
guide us
that we may learn
all the ways
to hold tender this land
hard clay direct
rock upon rock
charred earth
in time
strong green growth
will rise here
trees back to life
native flowers
pushing the fragrance of hope
the promise of resurrection
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