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About Button:
Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.
We seek to showcase the power and diversity of voices in our community. By encouraging and broadcasting the best and brightest performance poets of today, we hope to broaden poetry’s audience, to expand its reach and develop a greater level of cultural appreciation for the art form.
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Transcript provided by YouTube:
and the burning cross said a boy you
ever see a cross snap crackle pop rice
krispy into a bowl of flames I said you
ever seen a cross burning naw this ain’t
no crucifix I’d be crucifixion this
ain’t black skin this brown boy bark I
bark I bite I burn black crackle pop you
know I used to be a proud thing when I
was constructed I thought they were
gonna put me up in some church like my
mama and my dad you know my pops was a
pine and my mama was a redwood and they
uh they cross paths at Mount Joy Baptist
Church in Birmingham Alabama and they
they used to tell me that my great-great
great-great granddaddy was a was an old
rugged cross who who lived on Calvary
and there was this guy named Jesus that
was killed on him and ever since then
people have been looking to my folks as
a sign of salvation which brings us here
to the front yard of Reverend Robert
Hughes Birmingham Alabama July 1959 you
know I didn’t want to be burned like
this they said the Reverend was a good
man with good intentions I thought they
would hang me up in his church but but
the white men in white hoods who
constructed me they don’t hang crosses
they hang the bodies of poor colored
folks on my cousin’s my cousin trees who
wish they limbs wasn’t so strong which
they limbs would just snap under the
weight of under wanted passengers
instead they’d be crooked caskets
carrying them closer to God we don’t
call my cousin trees killers no we call
them cursed Poirier’s for us to bear the
burden of strange fruit forced to beckon
unwanted burials you know sometimes I
think it’s better to be burned I just
die here slowly I strike fear into all
who see I I be the ultimate
contradiction a Raisin in the Sun a
dream deferred a sign of salvation yet a
symbol that it will never come the
brightest light in the darkest
circumstances a burning cross B black
boy watching white supremacists burn his
body his whole being to the ground you
know
you know the harder we fight for freedom
the more of my sibling crosses they burn
in the front yards of well-meaning
individuals and desegregated schools
what will come of me when the fire has
had its fill some of me will become ash
I will seep into the soil as my family
mourns over my cha remains still some of
me is smoke I will cling to everyone who
ever knew me hoping that you don’t
forgive me and still some of me will
become heat and like heat I will rise I
will rise like that man they said they
killed him my great great great great
granddaddy you know they say after three
days he rose from the dead and like him
like heat I will rise and I just hope
you don’t forget me I just hope you all
tell my story
[Applause]
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
