The Start of the End of Me

On Tilbury docks we stand Separated from my kin Is the reason we're standing here The colour of my skin Standing in the column of no future I hear the white-man say We are heading to Virginia To be plantation slaves Another journey awaits me Without my family The thought of never seeing them again Internally horrifies me We find ourselves at sea With a shout land ahoy The state of Virginia reached Where men are turned into toys We are standing in a line In a market like cattle and sheep To my left and to my right Grown men, cower and weep White men are shouting and bidding With no thought to who we are Do they know we look just like them The difference is in our colour Bidding and bartering over Shaking hands as their deals are done We head to the plantation This era for me has begun Years of toil and work We hear stories from where we came Slavery has been outlawed Will America become the same As America enters civil war The North against the South We hear of Abraham Lincoln For these words are from his mouth " I never, in my life, felt more certain that i was doing right, than i do in signing this paper " The civil war ends With many killed and maimed White and black from all walks of life We are human, and we all have names For on December the 6th 1865 Slavery was abolished How many of me had died I grew old and free So far away from my home My family i never found For my spirit, will forever roam http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/slavery.php