Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement

Poem by Jane Stembridge

MRS. HAMER

The
revolutionary
element remained
intact:
they
simply
stood.
She said
"No, sir,
(for emphasis)
we didn't come
for no two
seats"

since
all of us
is tired.

[Mrs Fanny Lou Hamer, from sharecropper on the Sunflower (!) Plantation in Ruleville, Mississippi, to freedom fighter and to the Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1964, where the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was eventually offered a token two seats — which they refused. (Sunflower was Jim Eastland's family plantation.)]

THE CHILDREN

than anything

and cotton is
too heavy for

a child
to tote

Take
the chldren
home.

AUTOMATION

THE FLUTE
for Bob

the
fine
thin
flute
the flute
thin
thing
the
thin
thin
thing
which
thinner
than
the
rain
rings
freedom
in