Let none enslave you again…

“The Birth of Christ” by Paul Gauguin

from “The Negro Mother” by Langston Hughes

…

Look at my face — dark as the night —
Yet shining like the sun with love’s true light.

I am the dark girl who crossed the red sea
Carrying in my body the seed of the free.

I am the woman who worked in the field
Bringing the cotton and the corn to yield.

I am the one who labored as a slave,
Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave —
Children sold away from me, I’m husband sold, too.

No safety , no love, no respect was I due.

Three hundred years in the deepest South:
But God put a song and a prayer in my mouth .

God put a dream like steel in my soul.

Now, through my children, I’m reaching the goal.

…