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February is the Black History Month, so let us acknowledge their contribution to the development of the United States of America

When you think of

The greatest nation

Do you remember

The faceless people

Men, women, children

Who had their masters’ backs

Whose labor broke their backs

Who picked cotton for them

Grew tobacco, boiled sugar

Stoked their hearths

Tended to their livestock

Tended to their children

While they left their own

Out in the fields

At the mercies of the masters

Do you remember

They made the backbones

Of plantations, businesses, homes

Blended in the background

Not even counted

As people whole, only

Three-fifth of one

Mocking the self-evident truth

All men are created equal

Three out of five

Is less than one..

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The present is built

On the backbone

Of the unvarnished past

Acknowledge the backs

Broken and bent

So truth can stand

On a straight back