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Books and CDs by Glenis Redmond
Gwendolyn Knight: Discovering Powerful
Images /
Backbone /
Steam Dreams, an Anthology
Glenis on Poetry (CD)
Monumental (CD)
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Village Cry
By Glenis Redmond
I am living under the dread
of the confederate flag.
In my heart I know…
I am taller than plantation pillars.
I am taller than academic towers.
I am taller than the confederate flag
flying.
I’ve lasted through five-hundred years of
slavery.
There are many generations of uneducated
misery
between me and my resilient ancestors.
Their wilted souls like broken bones
provide blood in our red soil.
I look back.
I don’t see no trail blazed in glory,
just blood soaked cotton.
They tell me roots are lovely.
How would I know?
I can’t touch them.
I can’t hold them.
I can’t see them.
I’ve only held them in my mystical hand.
I’ve seen how they shrivel and shrink
when ripped from familiar soil.
They cannot breathe
as I cannot breathe.
I look back…
I don’t see no trail blazed in glory,
just my last name forced on by slavery.
R-E-D-M-O-N-D is too fragile to stretch
across these
atlantic waters.
I don’t have no last name,
neither does any other African brought to
this american
soil.
There is nothing affirmative action can
repair or replace in
thirty years.
Count them!
Five Generations of blood soaked cotton!
The new south cannot stand on the pillars of
the old south.
We can dress her up
with Magnolias, Camellias,
Honeysuckle vines.
Blood soaked cotton carries a stench.
I will not close my eyes to it.
I will not go gently.
I will do as Dylan Thomas says.
I will rage.
I will rage.
I will rage.
The Berlin Wall toppled.
Apartheid did too.
This flag will go down!
And I will be standing taller…
taller than plantation pillars.
taller than academic towers.
taller than the confederate flag flying.
This flag will go down.
It will be gone with the wind.
There will be no sequel Scarlett,
because, frankly I do give a Damn!
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The Blight That Is Still With Us—They still
honor Benjamin Tillman down here, which is very much
like honoring a malignant tumor. A statue of Tillman,
who was known as Pitchfork Ben, is on prominent display
outside the statehouse.
Tillman served as
governor and U.S. senator in the late 19th and early
20th centuries. A mortal enemy of black people, he
bragged that he and his followers had disenfranchised
“as many as we could,” and he publicly defended the
murder of blacks.
In a speech on the Senate floor, he
declared:
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We of the South have
never recognized the right of the negro to
govern white men, and we never will. We have
never believed him to be the equal of the
white man, and we will not submit to his
gratifying his lust on our wives and
daughters without lynching him. |
Real change is more
than problematic in a state so warped by its past that
it can continue to officially admire a figure like
Tillman.
The host of a
dinner party I attended was Bud Ferillo, a white public
relations executive who produced and directed a
documentary called “Corridor of Shame” to call attention
to the terrible neglect of rural schools in South
Carolina.
If you were to walk
into some of those schools — which are spread along a
crescent-shaped corridor on either side of Interstate 95
from the southern edge of North Carolina to the northern
edge of Georgia — you might forget that you were in the
United States.
A former South
Carolina commerce secretary, Charles Way, talks in the
film about the time his car broke down near one of these
schools and he went inside to use a phone.
“I just couldn’t
really believe my eyes,” he said. “It was the most
deplorable building condition that I’ve ever seen in my
life. How the hell somebody could teach in an
environment like that is really just beyond me.”
Among many other problems, ancient
plumbing has resulted in raw sewage backing up into some
schools, bringing in vermin and unbearable odors. The
first school profiled in “Corridor of Shame” was built
in 1896.
Bob Herbert, NYTimes
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posted 23 January 2008 |
