Pauli Murray – Dark Testament, pt. I
Freedom is a dream
Haunting as amber wine
Or worlds remembered out of time.
Not Eden’s gate, but freedom
Lures us down a trail of skulls
Where men forever crush the dreamers —
Never the dream.
I was an Israelite walking a sea bottom,
I was a Negro slave following the North Star,
I was an immigrant huddled in ship’s belly,
I was a Mormon searching for a temple,
I was a refugee clogging roads to nowhere —
Always the dream was the same —
Always the dream was freedom
Dark Testament, pt. II
Free earth hungered for free men but
Free men soon hungered for gold.
Planters bargained with traders,
traders bargained with slavers,
Slavers turned towards Africa.
The dream was lost in the quest for gold.
The men of Africa were stalwart men,
Tough as hickory deep in their primal forests,
Their skins the color of tree bark —
Ebony, bamboo, cocoanut, mango —
Their hair was thick with jungle,
Their eyes were dark as star-fed night.
They were sly and cunning, fearless and cool,
They knew the cry of every forest bird and beast.
Might be time for a change here 