One Knee

Poet: Ken Jordan Poem: One Knee Edited by: Sparkle Jordan written: September 2017 One Knee <> Yes, I kneel down on one knee damn right I do - I will not honor an Anthem of a country that don’t honor me - <> One Knee I was a SLAVE when President Thomas Jefferson, (who owned hundreds of SLAVES) wrote the Declaration Of Independence - <> “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” <> One Knee Through the racist Founding Fathers of a new Nation from George Washington to Ulysses S. Grant <> One Knee When Francis Scott Key, was inspired to write: <> “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” <> However, these are the lines we don’t sing to the Anthem we praise - <> “No refuge could save the hireling and slave, from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave. And the star- spangled banner in triumph doth wave. O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” <> One Knee <> Yes I was down on One Knee long before SLAVE owner Francis Scott Key, wrote the National Anthem - <> He wasn’t honoring me, and the 6 million enslaved blacks in these United States - <> One Knee through the Atlantic Slave Trade in 1619 - <> One Knee On the Slave Ship Brookes, across the Atlantic Sea - <> One Knee Through the induction of the American Flag in 1777 <> One Knee Through The Slave Trade Act Of 1783 <> One Knee Through Jamestown, Virginia., where I was a slave, sold off to work the Tobacco crops for the North American Colonies - <> One Knee Yes, I kneel down on One Knee damn right I do - I will not honor an Anthem of a country that don’t honor me - <> One Knee A slave I be, solidifying the South’s economy when I invented the Cotton Gin in 1793. <> One Knee Through The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 <> One Knee Through The Westward expansion in 1840 <> One Knee Through The Abolition movement to set slaves free - <> One Knee Yes, I kneel down on One Knee damn right I do - I will not honor an Anthem of a country that don’t honor me - <> One Knee Through the American Civil War (1861-65) <> One Knee Through the Unions victory over the Confederate South - 4 million slaves freed from bondage. <> One Knee Through the tumultuous Reconstruction years (1865-77) I kneeled - <> One Knee Through the Emancipation Proclamation 1863 <> “All slaves henceforth shall be set free.” Abraham Lincoln <> He was assassinated over my black skin - <> One Knee <> Through The Montgomery Bus boycott, 1955 when Rosa Parks, refused to give up her seat in the front of the bus - One Knee <> Through the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s - <> One Knee Through The Civil Rights Act 1964 The Voting Rights Act 1965 <> One Knee through the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr., “Drum Major Of Peace” 1968 <> Yes damn right I kneel down on One Knee <> Though I respect “Old Glory,” <> I will not stand with my hand to my chest, to honor a country that discredit, dehumanize, demoralize, oppress through racial injustice and inequality. <> One Knee Through Police brutality; who kill us, and not be held accountable <> One Knee Through the ignorance of a U.S. President, spouting derogatory words to black mothers, and sons exercising their Civil Rights - <> One Knee Yes, I kneel down on one knee damn right I do - I will not honor an Anthem of a country that don’t honor me - Copyright (c)., Ken Jordan 2017