The Rising: A poem for the W.E.B. Du Bois Academy Charter School
that has risen from a cadaverous state
in the form of a school, made flesh,
to spread the black Word
among our destitute youth.
From the ground it will rise,
and stand before us
as the oracle of our children’s future;
shedding light on those
submerged in academic darkness,
while reinstating in the minds of our youth,
Black Pride, and the Social Justice tradition
that was lost to
the fiery furnace of American racism.
I ask of you to rise
to the occasion of a new inception:
of a monument that we can call our own.
May we rise and embrace
the father of our black studies?
May we rise as collective agitators?
Throwing ourselves in the direction
of The Board of Education,
and of philanthropists’
to encourage the building of
the W.E.B. Du Bois Academy Charter School.
Black people, now is our time to rise.