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From : shapeofabox
Added: Jan 8, 2009
Issue #15 is a poem written for inauguration day 2009 titled "Recorded in Time" by poet Helen Losse. All materials are copyright 2008. For a list of still images used, bio of the author and thanks to those in the video and locations follow this link: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d92t5mg_32c7js7hk5 Text of the Piece Follows: Recorded In Time —November 4, 2008 For this occasion, Im going to call the roll, and if you are present, answer. If youve been waiting, tell us how long, tell us or show us how you feel. After a while, this may become a litany of angels and saints, the quick and the dead, who, in melody and harmony in spirit and in truth, and with thanks to James Weldon Johnson, lift evry voice and sing There are many slaves here. Some sold south. Some who were beaten after hiding in the woods. There are men and women and children. Mammy, Jake, Jezebel, Chicken-Man were not your real names. Stripped of your natal pride. Still, for this night, you have come. Im sure Gabriel Prossers here. Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner. Your rebellions speak louder of what you wanted than the here of your swift reply. This present freedom depends on shed blood— even blood from John Browns white body, so that dead, his soul [, too, still] march[es] on! Harriet Tubman, You were Moses to your kin, and you managed to smuggle 19 out to freedom in the north. How loudly your actions speak. Soujourner Truth. What a fight for equality. You two great women are here. Then I mention certain former slaves, who have recorded their stories in the government project that created jobs after the Great Depression. I will call only a few of you by name. Ben Horry. Sarah Gudger. Aunt Lucy. And you will answer, We are here, after waiting a long, long time. There are many others with you. You know who you are. Frederick Douglass. In 1872, you were nominated for Vice- President by the Equal Rights Party. Youre here, right? Youre watching whats being called historic. Watching the votes come in for Americas first Black President, you look happy. A. Philip Randolph. You, and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. You who formed a labor union and fought Jim Crow and marched in 63. You are here? You say, yes, and that you believe in Main Street. George Washington Carver. Phillis Wheatley, Mahalia Jackson. Septima P. Clark. The writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Booker T. Washington. I Too Sing America, answers Langston Hughes. I am calling Martin, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers. Ralph Abernathy. Bayard Rustin. James Farmer. Andrew Young. And John Lewis, the Boy from Troy who marched with you, spoke at the Lincoln Memorial. Many of you are dead now—free at last. Lewis breathes, votes in Congress, took a bunch of flack in the present election. Lets not forget Rosa. Rosa Parks, so much more than any symbol. Ella Baker. Jo Ann Robinson. All of you women behind the scene, who typed and organized and walked. I call on the beautiful Fannie Lou Hamer. How I hope your answer comes in song, for my little light so wants to shine, with your light. How many voters did you bring, Fannie—sick and tired to the bone that Freedom Summer? I am calling the girls who died in Birmingham. Coretta Scott King. Maya Angelou. Alice Walker. June Jordan. Zora Neale Hurston. Toni Morrison. Nikki Giovanni, Gwendolyn Brooks. And Viola Gregg Luizzo, the only white woman to die in the movement of the 60s. I call on Jackie Robinson. Im recalling your sacrifice, when someone— forced to pee behind the bus and to eat at the back window—calls out, Here! Here. Now. You may now go where you will. Im saying Hey to Willie Mays, Hank Aaron. O.J.? O. J., How did you get here? Your silence speaks volumes. Volumes. What about Tupac? Perhaps some others will surprise. But remember who we are. Ralph Ellison. Lerone Bennett. John Hope Franklin. Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong. Minister Louis Farrakhan and a Million Men who went for a March in the 90s. Tony Parent? Alton Pollard? John Mendez werent you there? Yes, Im calling you, too, Carlton Eversley. And Jesse Jackson. Oh, Jesse, Jesse— I know why you cry. You who were there when King died, shot, falling backwards, blood spilling onto the hard cement at the Lorraine. Didnt we all go backward for a while? Barack Obama. President Elect. Elsewhere, the leaves ride autumnal air waves; it is fall. But not here. Not now. No, here the air is still. As still as it was in the swamp where the runaway slave hid, then st[ole] away to Jesus. A great cloud of witnesses have come for this night. This time is recorded. Many who have known the dream see the glory that King saw on the top of a mountain.
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