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Poem Title:
Poem
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
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