ESTELAND

the everyday seems so much sweeter

“African spirituality is a lifestyle….Humanity living in awareness, consciousness, constantly being aware that they are not alone as human beings.”

— Joshua Maponga

Langston Hughes, Kids Who Die (1938)

This is for the kids who die,

Black and white,

For kids will die certainly.

The old and rich will live on awhile,

As always,

Eating blood and gold,

Letting kids die.

Kids will die in the swamps of Mississippi

Organizing sharecroppers.

Kids will die in the streets of Chicago

Organizing workers.

Kids will die in the orange groves of California

Telling others to get together.

Whites and Filipinos,

Negroes and Mexicans,

All kinds of kids will die

Who don't believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment

And a lousy peace.

Of course, the wise and the learned

Who pen editorials in the papers,

And the gentlemen with Dr. in front of their names.

White and black,

Who make surveys and write books.

Will live on weaving words to smother the kids who die,

And the sleazy courts,

And the bribe-reaching police,

And the blood-loving generals,

And the money-loving preachers

Will all raise their hands against the kids who die,

Beating them with laws and clubs and bayonets and bullets

To frighten the people—

For the kids who die are like iron in the blood of the people—

And the old and rich don't want the people

To taste the iron of the kids who die,

Don't want the people to get wise to their own power,

To believe an Angelo Herndon, or even get together.

Listen, kids who die—

Maybe, now, there will be no monument for you

Except in our hearts

Maybe your bodies'll be lost in a swamp.

Or a prison grave, or the potter's field,

Or the rivers where you're drowned like Leibknecht.

But the day will come—

You are sure yourselves that it is coming—

When the marching feet of the masses

Will raise for you a living monument of love,

And joy, and laughter,

And black hands and white hands clasped as one,

And a song that reaches the sky—

The song of the life triumphant