Sally Hemings

Monticello, Monticello
Will your walls ever talk?
Will your soul yield its secrets
Buried in your ancient heart?

Betty Hemings, Betty Hemings
Mother of that noted one
Did you know the Hemings line
Would carry Virginia’s royal blood?

Mr. President, Mr. President
I have just one question
For thy noble name.
For 38 years you loved her dearly
And then let her die a slave?

Mr. Wells-Brown, Mr. Wells-Brown
Did you do justice to her name?
Sally Hemings remains unknown
While Currer’s achieved her fame.

James T. Callender, James T. Callender
Immigrant from that distant land
I will forever thank your name
For now the name Hemings
Will forever stand.

Fawn M. Brodie, Fawn M. Brodie
Savior of that Hemings name
Let not that 20th century scholar
Send it to a lowly grave.

Sally Hemings, Sally Hemings
Infinite woman of color.
Long enough have you tarried
And now you will carry
Your legacy for centuries more.

**

Fifty 0ne Years and We Ain’t Weary Yet

One shot to death in cold, cold blood,
The other pistol beat.
They dragged one through the Mississippi mud
The other they killed in the street.

One was man of twenty-three
Transitioning to a husband from a date.
The other just a lad of fourteen strong
Both were met by the exact same fate.

The white men were acquitted
Of their God-forsaken crimes.
The trials were 51 years apart,
But nothing was changed by time.

One left behind kids and a wife,
The other a grieving mother.
Yet it has done little to curb the strife
That exists among the cousins.

They killed those two black men
One in the South, one in the North.
And intimidated the race
So that few witnesses came forth.

You’d think that in half a century
There’d be justice for the race,
These men once held their heads up high,
Now we bow ours in disgrace.

One died a senseless, brutal death
He didn’t look human in the face
The other died full of holes
Caused by some wild police chase.

You ask me whom I speak of
In these words that bring you chill?
Their names my friend are none other than
Sean Bell and Emmett Till.