How can we walk with pride
If we continue to deny
Ourselves a right once denied?
Brothers and sisters died
So that we may read and write.
Has materialistic milk of amnesia
Decreased the
Memories of their fight?
Maxed we relax
In Macked out Mcmansions
Supersizing superficialities
Pimping our priorities
Snuffing our abilities
To make it in this nation.
While sadly, we gladly propagate this proclamation:
A Black person is acting white
When desiring to acquire an education.
We inflict the damage
And shackle ourselves
When we don't take advantage
Of freedom beckoning from bookshelves.
Why do we perpetuate this lie
Which pimp-slaps the prize
Right from the sight of our very own eyes?
In the unwillingness
Of our own successes
Instead of casting votes we cast doubts.
Where are the "big ups", "props" and "shout outs" 
In appreciation of lives on the firing line:
Mrs. Daisy Bates and The Little Rock Nine.  
Courageous they attended school daily and were taunted
Dodging epithets, spit and fists erupting from the gauntlet.
Mr. James Meredith was as persistant
As the state of Mississippi was resistant
In his persuit of knowledge
They did not want his kind at their college.
With his eyes on the prize,
His desire to learn he would not compromise:
The antebellum ideal of segregation
Could not stymie this man's determination 
In a quest for education!
In Oxford, Mississippi mobs gathered there
To ensure this Black man could not register...
Black pioneers their efforts I revere:
Anger and danger were not their strangers
For their courage I thank them...
For so many today that time seems so far back.
They fought for equality in education
They wanted to learn and they were black!
Skin color and desire to learn have no correlation:
Don't get it twisted or mistook!
I've never seen any black hand turn white
While courageously 
Turning the pages of a book!