In June 2015 I had the honour of writing the first ever guest blog for my client akg-images, a fine art and history image library with offices in London, Germany and Paris. I was asked to choose any image from their collection and write about it. I chose the image below which shows African American Workers on strike in Memphis in 1968, shortly before Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated there. My reaction was to write a poem that was inspired by the image, and it ended up being something quite personal to me.
I Am A Man: Workers on strike in Memphis, 1968 © akg-images
I Am A Man
I am an underdog like those men in Memphis
But I am a man and nothing can prevent this
In these modern times we are still sentenced
They throw away the key and show no repentance
Both physically and metaphorically trapped
With my back to the wall on the wrong side of the tracks
It’s not 68 but there is still an ill mind state
Hence riot riot and the youth getting irate
No news is good news because all they talk about is high crime rate
News is bad news when the bigot starts to gyrate
They’re just here to violate – blame it all on immigration
Politician talking about the values of a nation
When the value of your purse came from us who laid your turf
Building you schools and churches and that’s all we deserve?
We put the cotton on your back and the sugar in your tea
For that truly British taste and all for no fee
I am a man no matter what you do to me
It’s been over four hundred years so this is not new to me
Like the Amistad mutiny, you’ll get no impunity
We’ll seek justice and free our community
Maroons in unity, send a message by courier
I am a woman the blue mountain warrior
Ashanti queen before Luther had a dream
My people call me Nanny but your people call me fiend
Because I revolt and raid plantations
And free the slaves to build a new nation
Emancipation, dignity, a future plan
Stand up and be counted because I am a man
© Derek Edwards 2016