Amiri Baraka
Gave us the sacred
Rite of passage
He took us into
That New York upper room
Held us together
Taught us to cherish
Blackness; showed us how
To shape it into art.
Amiri Baraka
Moved us to pray
To walk towards
Golgotha, the place of the skull,
To stir our cross
Of blackness in red soil
As we shaped blackness
Into Art
from I Am Black American (2016)
Dr. Hyman's African American Culture Review 