Project Description
Another Mississippi Murder
(For Mike Brown, Lennon Lacy, Eric Garner, Renisha McBride, and so on, and so on …)
they kilt that boy
lynched him
just as sho’ as my name is what it is
they did it cause that’s what they do in
kokomo Mississippi
kill folk
the same way they did
emmit till
in money mississippi
the same way they did
vernon dahamer
in hattiesburg mississippi
the same way they did
medgar evers
in jackson mississippi
the same damn way they did
schwerner, goodman and chaney in
philadelphia mississippi
the same way they did
mack charles parker
in poplarville mississippi
the same way they killed
andre jones
in a simpson county jail cell
hung him
like he was a skint pig
left to rot
under the watchful eye
of an old pale-faced devil’s
moon
down in mississippi
where
raynard ladell johnson
found death’s cold hands
draped in swaddling
white sheets
wrapped around his teenage throat
choking the life from his virile black
body
as it swayed
in front of a flushed face
of a history so ugly
only a short ignorant-limp-dick
pot-bellied-beer-guzzling-
rebel-flag-waving-trailer-trash-talking redneck
could love it
mississippi is my home and
my home is a place
whose whiteness torments me
like an electric ghost in
the industrial machine of
dixiecratic politics
I know mississippi well
’cause
I love
and
I hate
mississippi so
much that every now & again
it hurts
it hurts
it hurts
yet we continue to march and sing and pray
for a land soaked in our innocent blood
when war cries
and battle hymns are needed
for this is a new song
for a new day
and a new time
our piece will not be said
in hushed apologetic tones
of slobbering uncle toms seeking reconciliation
naw
this time we want justice
if not
then
we’ll settle for revenge
Charlie R. Braxton is a poet, playwright and essayists from McComb Mississippi. He is the author of two volumes of verse, Ascension from the Ashes (Blackwood Press 1991) and Cinders Rekindled (Jawara Press 2013). His poetry has been published in various literary publications such as African American Review, The Minnesota Review, Drumvoices Review, Sepia Poetry Review, Cut Bank, Specter Magazine, and The San Fernando Poetry Journal.
We at EmpathyEducates invite each of us to answer an unyielding question.
Is it not someone else's belief in 'revenge' that took us to a place of killing?
Will we ever evolve and end the cycle of perpetual bloodshed? What is justice and how will we ever get there?
This poem was reprinted by EmpathyEducates with the kind permission of the Author, Charlie R. Braxton. We are more than honored and feel privileged to share such a powerful reflection. Thank you Charlie R. Braxton.
