Feb 24, 2015

Poet's Nook: "Attica Prison Uprising" by Muhammad Ali


 In July of 1972, Muhammad Ali traveled to Dublin to fight Alvin ‘Blue’ Lewis, During an interview, Ali brilliantly entertains a studio audience with an original poem which he recites from memory, one minute into clip above. Ali sets the scene for the viewers to the Attica Prison uprising, still the deadliest in U.S. history. He imagines himself in the shoes of a black prisoner, responding to the white warden issuing a final ultimatum. His reply is  a call to arms....

Better far from all I see
To die fighting to be free
What more fitting end could be?
Better surely than in some bed
Where in broken health I’m led
Lingering until I’m dead
Better than with prayers and pleas
Or in the clutch of some disease
Wasting slowly  by degrees
Better than of heart attack 
Or some dose of drug I lack 
Let me die by being Black 
Better far that I should go 
Standing here against the foe 
Is the sweeter death to know 
Better than the bloody stain 
On some highway where I’m lain 
Torn by flying glass and pane 
Better calling death to come
Than to die another dumb
Muted victim in the slum
Better than of this prison rot
If there’s any choice I’ve got
Kill me here on the spot
Better far my fight to wage
Now while my blood boils with rage
Lest it cool with ancient age
Better vowing for us to die
Than to Uncle Tom and try
Making peace just to live a lie
Better now that I say my sooth
I’m gonna die demanding truth
While I’m still akin to youth
Better now than later on
Now that fear of death is gone
Never mind another dawn.


OneLove

:::MME:::

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