There was a time...

When Freedom's children

Were thrust into ships of death...

There was a time

When our very lives

Were only pawns

for those who enslaved us...

There was a time

When we risked our lives

To escape to freedom at any cost...

There was a time

When we struggled and died

In our quest for civil rights

There was a time

When we fought and died

For a country that denied our courage

Now, in this time

We dishonor ourselves...

By selling out our dignity and pride.

All in the name

Of predatory self-destructiveness

As we discount the worth of own lives

For now we die

By our own hands

As tools of genocidal bravado!

Now we die

For no cause at all

Drowning in our lust for violence!

Now is the time!

We must repent

and vanquish the darkness...this evil!

Lest we perish

At our own hands...

Have we come all this far

for nothing?

For one by one

Each day we stand by

and watch our life's blood

Being spilled...

Each day, another precious life

Is cut short,

By this self-deceptive bravado!

What have you done

To stop the carnage?

Have you prayed

Or taken a stand?

For this epidemic of violence engulfs us...

In a torrent of grief and sadness.

Act now!

Or,

another precious life...

Will be cut short...

By...a whole...lifetime!