HOW COULD I FORGET?

By Madge Hylton
Copyrighted 2006©

How could I forget Millenniums of grandeur?
Legacy of the first man

How could I forget
A civilization carved out for the world
By Ancient Africans
A civilization of religion, medicine, astronomy,
Metaphysics, endless creations
It gave authenticity to Europe
And ushered the Americas into being

I was there in the time of grandeur
I was there before the slave masters came
Buried deep in the loins of my Mother’s-Mother-
Mother: Great-Great-Great-Grandmother,
Endless Mothers
The same seed now a part of the African Diaspora

How could I forget, the authority of our beloved
Emperors and Empresses
Kings and Queens, Prince and Princesses of
Royal righteous Empires
Which today have no successors?

I was there in the field when the slave masters came
Using every trick under their hats, well learned
By the books
Shattering our Ancient civilization, trampling it flat!

How could I forget?
When I was there in the loins of my Mother-
Mother-Mother
Great-Great-Great-Grand-Mother
Endless Mothers
When the slave traders came

Chains for shackling metals they used
Chains to shackle my neck to my brother’s neck
Chains to shackle my feet to my brother’s feet
Chains for shackling our hands behind our backs
Reduced to chattel, led by force of the whip to
The hull of the ship
Yes, slave ship SS Jesus was and more
Yes! Slave Ship Jesus was there

It was wholesale human torture
The Frankenstein of Global Terrorism was begun

How could I forget?
The shelves in the hull
Chained to my brothers in my filth
Constantly smelling stench
And as far as I could see
My fellowmen chained to the hull of this ship
How could I forget some of my brothers dying
On these shelves until they stunk!
Yes! Yes! They stunk
The bloodcurdling screams of brutality
And those jumping ship, in preference to a home in the bottom of the sea
Mention must be made of those
Who were beaten to death
By slave traders
“Till their bones were broken
For resisting a coercive journey
Across the Bermuda Triangle
Straight across the Atlantic

How could I forget?
The six weeks of hell as human cargoes
We traveled the Atlantic Ocean
This the beginning of hundreds of years of dehumanization
The will of the Caucasoid race to reduce our
Ethiopic race to such disgrace

How could I forget the years I was present to
Witness those of us herded to the auction block
Bodies and souls becoming slave stock
Would fetch the price that determined plantation to which we were destined
To sacrifice integrity and dignity and to become lackeys

How could I forget?
How we would be beaten to death
To adopt their names, eat their food, wear their
Osnaburg cloth
Prohibited from seeking fellowship with our kin
All should be worked from sun up to sun down
With no pay a coming under slave drivers with their whips
They ripped away our off springs from our hands and our wombs

Recognizing our God given right
We waged that relentless fight-outright and passive resistance

How could I forget?
That left right and center we burnt the plantations
In revenge we kill as many a white man who dared to venture unprotected
Killed the babies produced from the rapes committed on African women
It was the psychological impact of resisting
Still such was no equal to the injustices we endured

How could I forget?
That I was there when Nanny led the war to wipe out the oppressors
Her brother Cudjoe compromised
Signed Peace Treaty, giving them the right to spy on us
I was there when 1831 Christmas Rebellion burnt plantation to plantation
When Sam Sharpe said, “I would rather die on yonder gallows than be a slave!”
I was there when Hariott Tubman led slaves by
Under-ground railroad from the plantain

So, how can I forget
That after time Europe waged a losing battle
And declared a halt declaring Emancipation?

How could I forget
That European Government paid compensation
To slave masters
For losses accrued when the slave trade ended

Still my Mother-Mother-Mother
Great-Great-Great-Grand Mother
Endless Mothers and Myself have not been paid
Only left to become vagabonds of their systems
And injustices for peoples enslaved.

How could I forget
That as slave traders uprooted Africans out of the Continent
They brought the real vagabonds of Europe
Calling them entrepreneur?
Confiscating property, subjecting those of the Continent to subhuman bondage
And more hostility
Here they established colonialism equaled with brutality
Setting those of my kin against each other
For just a little bread and butter

How could I forget
The stories they told of cockfights they won
Of the way they came and conquered
Boasting colonial prowess with the gun
Using might to beat right
Our ancient land Alkebulun
Became the fate of the 1898 Berlin Conference-CLAN?

In a manner that Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain
Divided the world into two halves
One for Spain, the other for Portugal
Europeans created demarcated borders
Incited internecine strife amongst Africans
Europe was in Africa for the kill of cultural heritage and race

Today, wherever Africans are found
There exist over-riding fears
Afraid to stand up for Human Rights and seeking justice in all its forms

In order to recover from a never ending debacle
Of racial dictates, racial hegemony, racial hatred
When will it ever end?

In this space and time
African descent peoples outside
And Africans on the Continent
Constituting the African Diaspora,
Recognizing this crazy world
Lopsided laws with their exalted flaws
Ready to claim all justice due
For such grave injustices committed

I will never forget,
It is for the well being
The repair of the race
And provisions for our posterity

I will never forget
That we are the African Diaspora
With a tendency
-To die-as-poor-a; as poor an African without
Rights or any justice ever paid
-To die-as-poor-a; a hungry black man or woman never know a belly full from birth
-To die-as-poor a; a destitute one despairing since arrival on earth

And how could I forget
That International Law has matured to recognize
That a breach of engagement has occurred
Causing racial genocide, internally and externally displaced peoples to the enrichment of others

I cannot forget
That it is a principle of International Law
That where a breach of engagement has occurred
The responsibility exist to make Reparations

I say…I cannot forget, that it is a principle of International Law…Reparations (Repeat)

How can I forget?
I will never forget!!!