You Cannot Keep Us Down
We came out in droves
Because you cannot keep us down
We came out in droves
Marching to our silent outrage
Women in white
Men in black
The persistent heartbeat of the drums
The only sound.
You can kill our brothers and sisters
Our mothers and fathers
Our sons and daughters
But you cannot keep us down
And you cannot kill our spirit
Though you try.
Your fear and your outrage
Are our bloodline.
You cannot keep us down.
We will come out in droves
Armies of life
Women in white
Men in black
To show the depth of our pain
And the color of our courage.
We will persist.
We will resist.
We will survive this, too.
You can silence our tongues
But not our hearts
Or our spirits
Or our hope.
We will come out in droves
Until we silence
Your hatred
And your fear
With our courage
And our will.
We will.
In early July 1917, East Saint Louis, Illinois, was the center of the worst racial violence the country had seen to date, with 50–200 Blacks killed, and over $400,000 worth of property damages. On July 28, the NAACP organized a silent march on Fifth Avenue, in Manhattan, attended by an estimated 10,000 people, to protest the violence. This poem from my upcoming novel The Unbroken Horizon, out August 15, was inspired by the march.