Shattered glass
Fire in the street
Rioters crying
Hearts in anguish
Not just Floyd
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But four hundred years
Under the white heel
Pain of centuries
Pouring in the streets
Don’t understand our tack?
Maybe ‘cause — you’ve never been black
Four hundred years
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Justice denied
Our women raped
Our children sold
Dads on the block
Squalid shacks
Penned like sheep
Don’t understand our tack?
Maybe ‘cause — you’ve never been black
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On our labor
Plantations rich
Days of glory
Dancin’ for whites
For workers
No Christian charity
Jesus of compassion
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Nowhere in sight
Churches silent
New creation
Of Love and care
Dismissed dream
Don’t understand our tack?
Maybe ‘cause — you’ve never been black
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After awful war
Constitution said
We are free
Right to vote.
What Constitution wrote
Society denied
With Jim Crow
Not this toilet
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Not this fountain
Not this seat
Constant fear
Don’t understand our tack?
Maybe ‘cause — you’ve never been black
Justice promised
Police chastised
Committees named
Reforms promised
Postponed by time
Dreams dashed
When all is over
We’ll still
Be sitting in back
Don’t understand our tack?
Maybe ‘cause — you’ve never been black
MLK once said
‘Riot the language
Of the unheard’
Hear us now?
Hear us now?
For 400 years
We couldn’t breathe
We couldn’t breathe
Don’t understand our tack?
Maybe ‘cause — you’ve never been black
Lloyd Omdahl is a former state lieutenant governor and professor at UND.
