We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.
I know those words by heart
As well as I know the 23rd Psalm
As well as I know my favorite poem
I have known them since childhood
And I can quote, too, from memory
The Declaration that preceded it
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Ideals immediately betrayed
And never fully reconciled
Fannie Lou Hamer told us plainly:
Nobody’s free until everyone’s free
Martin Luther King, Jr. echoed
Injustice anywhere
is a threat to justice everywhere—
an inescapable network of mutuality
We killed him for naming
That fatal foundational flaw
We congratulated ourselves
When we elected one black man to lead us
While we incarcerated nearly 600,000 others
We pretended we had erased centuries of slavery
We ignored the tremors from the fault line
Running through our foundation
But the system carefully structured
To preserve the illusion of liberty and equality
Finally dropped all pretense—
Despite the will of the people
Placed a despot in power
The threatened earthquake followed
We saw the foundation crack
And the lava of hate and hypocrisy
Spewed forth at last
Closing borders
Colluding with foreign enemies
Abandoning long alliances
A tide of terror lit by torches
Willing to kill its opposition
And he saw it, and called it good
Wealth and whiteness
Stopped pretending
Those sworn to uphold the Constitution
Openly abandoned the rule of law
For the preservation of their own power
It was always going to come to this
The people — the people — are the rightful masters of both Congresses, and courts — not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.
Abraham Lincoln wrote those words
Notes in a speech for his famous debates with Douglas
Following his defense of preserving slavery where it existed
Without allowing it to spread further
Hypocrisy infected our noblest heroes
Were they blinded to their own contamination too?
Forgive us, Father, for we have sinned
Langston Hughes cried out
American never was
His lament far more eloquent than mine
Go read it instead
Or Maya Angelou’s
Proud declarations…leaves on the wind
While we let this truth sink in deep:
None of us was ever free
None of us was ever equal
None of us ever received justice
Maybe America can be made again
As Langston Hughes suggested
Maybe there can be justice for all
Maybe we can all be free
But today is not that day
Today is a day for tears
Today is a day for mourning
Today is a day to sit in the truth
Of what we never were
America never was America to me.
Not for any of us
Becoming Bridge 