Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement

Poems by Abdul Aziz Khaalis (Jan Leighton Triggs)

Mississippi Street Song in Hinds County
Parchman Cell

MISSISSIPPI STREET SONG IN HINDS COUNTY
[Dedicated to N.A.G. which was a vital link in the civil rights struggle.]

Hear the whistle of little Joe Abel Smith, whose dad makes
Fifteen dollars a week.
Watch Joe go hysterical at a penny tossed.
The mist of hell, protest ring out, beating fist, blood gush gush,
screams, and a rope hangs from a dark tree tall.
How black the noon sun can be, oh how black and miserable it is.
The windows looking onto our suffering are unwashed, you
cannot see clearly, but listen to the bleak heart-breaking sob
melody, hear the blast of hopes gone nowhere.
Little boy Joe Abel Smith lies smashed of hope hurt on some
leaves in the brown dirt, looking at the dangling rope, dreamless,
Clutching the penny tossed as folks look down at him with futile
dreams coming alive in their eyes, their dark faces silent and
representative of Mississippi streets in anguish.

PARCHMAN CELL

I am in a cell with Rip Patton.
Stokely is to our left, John Lewis to our right.
We talk our words, sing our songs, and we dream
Of fighting for freedom all day long into the night.
We carry on, as Parchman Pen. creaks, groans, cries, moans, and we feel it in our bones.
The naked black hearted hate made steel bunks and bars our cells of fate.

[Jan Leighton Triggs was a Howard University Student in the early 1960s. He wrote for the Howard University Hilltop newspaper, served as the president of the Student Peace Union, was the first Historian of the Nonviolent Action Group, and was a founding member of Project Awareness on the Howard University campus. He was arrested on June 8, 1961 in Jackson, Mississippi during one of the first Freedom Rides, sentenced to Parchman Prison with other Freedom Riders, and participated in many social demonstrations. Along with Norman Thomas, in 1961 he addressed 25,000 demonstrators at the Washington Monument and spoke about peace and the civil rights struggle.]