Name: Selma's Sun
Duration: P00H02M34S
Description: A revised commission for the 58th Anniversary of the March on Washington (1963) at the memoriam in Albuquerque at the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice on August 28th, 2021.

Selma's Sun

by Hakim Be

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A revised commission for the 58th Anniversary of the March on Washington (1963) at the memoriam in Albuquerque at the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice on August 28th, 2021.

lyrics

Selma's Sun.

I mean no disrespect to Willie Mae and Eddie Lewis,
having sacrificed their third born
to the collective romanticization of a country

who never really loved him anyhow.

Just like Martin Luther and Jesus Christ
eventually deified by those who’d assault

or assassinate them.

A witting and willing sacrifice for peace.
I beg your pardon,
because for the purposes of this poem

I need his parents to have the names
Selma and Troy.

Two Alabama towns 86 miles apart.
Son of the south with heaven in his heart
amidst the hell on earth surrounding him.

Black boy with the audacity to understand
God sent him to save himself.
Save his hometowns and endanger his self,
to give other Black homes a chance at a normal life.

To give other Black towns a chance at a normal life.

Put his body on the all the lines.
Picket. Color. Front.

Put his body in the way.
Bridge. Housing. Bus.

Put his body on display.
Lunch. Counter. Guts.

Showed a generation that it takes more heart
to take a beating
than to throw a punch.

He was a different kind of tough.
Bronze. Marble. Granite.

A survivor.

The innocent bystander left alive to testify
to this country’s miscarriage of us.

A walking, talking reminder
of the legacy we’d inherit.

And one day, just like that…
Selma’s sun would be gone.

Still warm,
finally fit in “a box” … just like they wanted.
More like a gift … anointed
for us.

Now,
a horizontal history on wheels.

Queue the requisite Congressional flyover,
Him, somehow still able to flinch at the 21 gun salute,

An unprecedented National Museum of African American History drive-by
for tha’ culture,
our salute.

So much easier to celebrate as an artifact
as opposed to an activist…

and we couldn’t even get that right
at the time,
every time.

So he accessioned himself into the collection,
into the DNA of a country

that is better at monuments
than movements

on his way out.

credits

released August 28, 2021
Hakim Bellamy

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Hakim Be Albuquerque, New Mexico

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