Apirl Is National Poetry Month!

April Is National Poetry Month!

An iconic revolutionary sister, political activist, former Black Panther Party Leader of both The New Haven Chapter and Los Angeles chapter. A political prisoner, poet, writer, mother, wife, widow of John Huggins, and educator. She was the director of the renowned “Oakland Community School,” a Black Panther Party liberation community-run child development center and elementary school. Today I shine the spotlight on this amazingly strong Sister.

SISTER ERICKA HUGGINS
ERICKA'S POEM
(May 25, 1969)

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
The rise of the Black Man
The liberation of the Black Woman
The year of the Black Panther
This is the beginning of the end of the beginning of the
Revolutionary Struggle
This is the new world
The world of guns and political direction
And shouts of no more MURDER put an end to the terror
This dying has been done
For all of us--no crucifixion, no martyrdom
There is true understanding--no ignorance
But revolutionary arrogance
We will dare to struggle and dare to win
This head, this heart, this hand, this body
Will clean itself of
This filth
These Morals
These Ethics
This spirit will strike out against
Racism, Capitalism, Imperialism, Oppression and Brutality
Huey is free--he realizes--WE are jailed
This woman will fight to the end for Malcolm, for Bobby, Eldridge,
For Huey, for Jon, for Bunchy
For Mai and for the anonymous
Black man, black woman, black child
I am anonymous so I must FIGHT
This is the dawning of the age of
REV-O-LU-TION! GUNS! BLOODSHED?
BLOODSHED-No, this is the dawning of age of JUST war
Against unjust degradation, humiliation, starvation, castration,
Usurpation, abasement torture
If blood be shed for the future of the people.
LET IT BE DONE
Coldblooded-this is cold-blooded COLD BLOODED
Black man, Can you hear me?
We are being murdered S.O.SS.O.S
Black woman your unborn baby is dying