I tell it like it was.
We walked ahead that day, even if we felt ourselves alone
Edging forward, bit by bit climbing
Wanting to reach out and touch the gathering crowds
	but not daring
Buckling under our own burdens, still we could not stop.

Calls or jeers coming at us from the left and the right, 
we couldn't tell
	Cousins perhaps? Others in our struggle
To redeem a divine promise,
A dream we'd handed down as, if not an heirloom,
then our most precious keepsake.
But we knew that none could hold us in check forever
Armed as we were with resolve and faith
Willing to sacrifice ourselves
For the souls of a new generation.

Struggling from the moment we stepped off that ship
When asked who we were and could not answer,
We would not be disappointed now
For once teased with the forbidden beauty of freedom
And left lying in pools of self-ridicule by her rejections,
We would walk and walk often,
Dusk and dawn no different.
It seemed we were always walking down some long, wide road
Headed inevitably toward the obvious,
On that particular day
Tired but not once falling
Toward Selma
And beyond.