Have We Forgotten?
Have we forgotten the bridge and the blows?
Have we forgotten the fear Black folks know?
Have we forgotten the blood and the cries?
Have we forgotten America’s lies?
My grandmother lived through laws
that told her where she could not stand,
where she could not eat or vote,
where she was unwelcome in this land.
My grandfather worked through pain
while carrying dreams he could not touch,
because in the eyes of many Americans
his Black skin alone was simply too much.
Have we forgotten the bridge and the blows?
Have we forgotten the fear Black folks know?
Have we forgotten the blood and the cries?
Have we forgotten America’s lies?
They said the Constitution promised freedom,
said justice belonged to every man,
yet Black Americans kept discovering
their “freedom” came with a backhand.
A hand that blocked the ballot box,
a hand that enforced the racial line,
a hand that called oppression “order”
while stealing dignity one law at a time.
Have we forgotten the bridge and the blows?
Have we forgotten the fear Black folks know?
Have we forgotten the blood and the cries?
Have we forgotten America’s lies?
There were children raised in terror,
raised hearing hatred at the door,
raised watching crosses burn and Black men hang
because America allowed the horror.
There were fathers forced to whisper,
“There are places you should not go,”
because freedom in this country
depended on what white people would allow you to know.
Have we forgotten the bridge and the blows?
Have we forgotten the fear Black folks know?
Have we forgotten the blood and the cries?
Have we forgotten America’s lies?
I was bused across the city
to a school far from my home,
a Black child inside a history
I was too young then to fully know.
I sat inside those classrooms
as the only Black face anyone could see,
living through federal integration
without anybody explaining it to me.
Have we forgotten the bridge and the blows?
Have we forgotten the fear Black folks know?
Have we forgotten the blood and the cries?
Have we forgotten America’s lies?
A nation without memory
becomes a nation led by fear,
where truth is slowly buried
more deeply every year.
And when the past is forgotten,
its truth is soon replaced,
because history left untended
becomes history erased.
Now I speak to my grandchildren
while they are still young enough to hear,
because silence between generations
has cost our people far too dear.
I want them to know the story,
to know what people sacrificed to do,
so nobody can rewrite the suffering
or hide what this country put us through.
Have we forgotten the bridge and the blows?
Have we forgotten the fear Black folks know?
Have we forgotten the blood and the cries?
Have we forgotten America’s lies?
Eric Lawrence Frazier Poet