A review of race history in America is a mix of hope and of fear; rights and wrongs; in short and in truth a mixed story.  Today, we confront that which was wrong.  Still, we should do so not in erasing yesterday.  But, rather in learning from it.

Facing Fear Toward Tomorrow
by Michael Doyle

With only five percent of the world's population
Contained and constrained within our bordered nation
Twenty-Five percent the world's convicts are in prison
This then is not the freedom most would envision

How do we remedy the harm that that has been done
Bringing us back as a people of liberty unified as one
Sets of choices made that must be wisely understood
If we are to have a righteous nation decent and good

The Thirteenth Amendment granted clear emancipation
Of all from slavery across the width of our great nation
But there were exceptions of criminality allowing for servitude
That were vastly exploited and now explode with their exactitude

With the end of the Civil War, legal shackles shattered
But then also the economy of the South was left tattered
As then, economic devastation did grow and loom
The wrong answer taken led to America's first prison boom

The Birth of A Nation was released as alleged art and commentary
The few truths, if any, were broad based and fragmentary
Leading the descent into the unrighteous culture of fear
And an avoidance of allowing the "other" anywhere near

Burning unholy crosses in front of innocent homes
And 350,000 Klansmen in Democratic Convention were not alone
Who will ever be able to explain to the survivors of Emmett Till
Why exactly some felt his death was some kind of righteous kill

Segregation and the punitive laws of ole Jim Crow
Relegated American blacks into second class shadow
With the greatest indignity, a thousand points of light
Spread their resistance peacefully to fight for human rights

After decades of hearing the word that they must learn to "wait"
American black people arose to use forceful love to defeat hate
The wait that always meant never made justice an unfamiliarity
Used in action to exclude brothers and sisters from God's family

Justice too long delayed until all but totally seeming denied
Was the predicament for all those who had tried and cried
Seeking only to live equal with all their neighboring Americans
This then was that something that could not be allowed to stand

(c) June 18, 2020  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved