Many Paid the Price

Look to your left - Look to your right
Someone you’re looking at - Has paid the price
Either personally - Or through past generations
Yet still today, we have - Hurts and frustrations

Pioneers of the land - The Marches that went forth
For so many people - To be able to freely walk the earth
Young people pick up a book - Earn some knowledge
Get off the street corners - And into classrooms of a University or College

Pay it forward - Give it back
Education is key - Its not whack
Learn your heritage - From where you come
Know that this is - God’s home

Past struggles - Present issues
Hold your head high - Keep working toward your vision
There is something I don’t understand - Through every thing in the past
Why do our young brother’s - Kill one another

How can you look into the eyes - Of another human being
Pull the trigger - How can you be so mean?
Our people along with other races - Fought for our rights
To be able to live a fair life - I can’t fathom the reasoning of this strife

So many killings - Day after day
Brother killing brother - This just isn’t the way
Too many people have died - And sometimes it seems in vain
Because what we see on the news everyday or experience in life
Is completely insane!

Can someone explain to me - The mindset of our youth
I’m perplexed - So I’m looking for the truth
Why is there genocide? - So many homicides
And there is no hesitation - About the lives being taken

It angers my heart - It angers my soul
That people can so easily kill - That people are so bold
People listen to me - When I tell you
The Civil Rights Movement - Was to see us through

To get us to a better place - Although discrimination and racism still exists
It is very prevalent - With the Jena 6
Gang violence has taken the life - Of an innocent 10-year old boy
My prayers go out to the family - Of little Arthur Jones

Gun shots ring out - Now 14-year old Samuel is dead
Gun man came back in anger over a bike - And shot this young man in the head!
I lost my own brother this year (2007) - Because of senseless gun violence
And it’s getting worse too - R.I.P. little bro, we love you Cinque

U.S. Troops fighting a War - Overseas in Iraq
Make no mistake about it - Many have paid the price
IT IS TIME to walk through the door - Of a brand new light
We are a powerful people - When we stand together and fight

Not fight as in violence - But to have regard for human life
Never forgetting - Many paid the price

Copyright © Yolanda Jackson | Year Posted 2008

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