Melissa Prunty Kemp

Blackberry, blueberry, carmel cream kids in droves

flood Auburn Ave on MLK Jr Day.  If they can’t make it

downtown they flit around metal desks, glue pictures

of black icons to poster board.  They get ready

to color their world with the faces of civil rights leaders,

some dead, some still walking these Atlanta streets.

Safety scissors cut a fresh picture of John Lewis.

See John hug. See Elwin Wilson cry,

apologize to John for breaking his head.

On any Tuesday, The Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery

might deliver to young ears an explanation

of the Civil Rights Movement,  non-fiction

from his own eyes.  He might even show you

a welt or two.

 

What happens after that, after all the people

went home on January 20th?

Who recites the nameless soldiers who sat

down on busses before Rosa Parks?

Who tells the children that Ida B. Wells

was the first to refuse to give up a seat?

Who remembers The Real McCoy—Elijah

and his lubricating cap? Will the deaf

remember to speak louder the name of Lewis

Latimer and his hearing aid, or read music

notes they can now see as they play

under lights made functional by Latimer’s

filament? Whose dusty feet will find relief

from shoes formed and sewn with Jan

Matzeliger’s shoe laster?  Our teachers used

to tell us in Vine City classrooms.  We used

to look up the hill, dream of becoming

a Morehouse Man like Lerone Bennett, Jr.,

or a Dame walking under the arch,

an Alice Walker or Bernice King.  Who

urges us along the way now that the lights

at Morris Brown are dark and pigeons

fly through Fountain Hall windows?