I heard a shot —
I think Medgar Evers just dropped.
I don’t think the N double-A C P
can understand or see
how his spirit lives through me.
Why are you so concerned
with Los Angeles being a gang color spectacle,
with Baltimore being a murder capital?
And why are you so influenced by rap lyrics —
grab a gun on your brother, act irrational.

So TELL ME how do you feel
about what happened to young Emmett Till.
Such a heinous act, in his casket his face was unreal.

So you think it won’t happen to you,
your house be set on fire,
and you run out into blazing gunfire?
The cops got you marked in their sights,
then you did like little Bobby Hutton and still lose your life.
I can only speak what’s true,
what’s relevant to now-a-day’s life.

And why when it comes to money
we got this screwed-up perception?
We never try to invest, we just try to obtain possessions.
You say you need the finer things in life. NEGRO please,
like you actually in touch with the dynasty
of our ancestors, rocking the finer jewels in life.
You need to wake up and truly analyze,
because we are nothing but black people in the white man’s sight
Black bull, black market, Black Friday, blacklist and blackout.
To them, that is all black people are about.

You think they won’t get you like Fred Hampton,
and run up inside your house?
Shoot once in your arm, shoulder, and twice in your head,
shoot your baby mother while she’s eight months pregnant with your kid.
And you can tell me WHO THE HELL is suppose to care
about Mark Clark sleeping on that living room chair.
The program for counter intelligence
is strictly after the black residents.
They don’t want our sisters to grow up
to be another Gwendolyn Brooks
who is smart, educated, and strong in the books.

No JUSTICE, no peace.
Rosa Parks was there first, I be damned if she leave that seat.
Ain’t she a woman too,
in the words of Sojourner Truth.
And Marcus Garvey said
a man without history is a tree without roots.

So I’m addicted to my freedom
just like I was a fiend,
but can’t we all just get along in the words of Rodney King.
And if, like Martin Luther King, I had a dream,
I be damned if I’mma look back.
I don’t even want to go to Harlem
where the last words were spoken by Malcolm X.
We must move on but we must never forget
about our people being burnt alive, castrated, and lynched.

So I look you in your eyes.
You hit me and I will not flinch.
Cause I shall not be moved.
Cause I am strictly heaven-sent.

I am as strong as the will of Assata Shakur,
I shall not take so much more,
belligerent mind ready for war.
We must wake up and stop being so blinded in our sight
and truly analyze this life,
because we are nothing but black people
in the white man’s sight.