Student writing feature: A poem for Black History Month

We were torn from each other like paper masks 

not knowing they launched us into new beginnings, black depth, 

how did we become so complex? 

Adorned with the same faces, hair types and skin,  

But our language, 

culture and traditions differ 

Even across continents we are connected like kin 

From countries we consider our mothers arms, 

Extended across this sphere, settled in variety, 

From the vast cityscapes to small hidden farms,

We are afro carribean, ancestry settled on islands, forced to cultivate cane till they rose up in arms, 

Other nations followed, hearing of such rebellion, 

see we’ve been fighting for a while, somebody please tell them, 

Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana

Saint Vincent, Saint Lucia, Belize and Grenada, 

Walking towards  our other tribes, cause we’ve been strewn across continents, 

Travel up towards the center, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica to Brazil 

 where my afro-latinos speak sweet words covering the mountains, valleys, and hills

Though the scars exist on the surface, we have deep ancestry, allow me to introduce you to African identity, 

We all came from one sweet mother, she can provide the world with everything, she’s truly like no other

They say “The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people” what happens when the people were subjected to evil, 

But nations rise and built their own sequel 

Our deepest secrets are richer than the skin we are in

Our differences do not make us less than, far from God’s grace, nor are we embodiments of sin

And the words we speak run farther than the mountain tops we journeyed from

We walk in the footsteps of ancestors, creating paths where roads should never exist;

Extending from the shadows of bondage, we are bigger than those ships

we were tarried from.

Bigger than the shackles of old, we wear as tattoos of new :

We are black history.

For this we know to be true.