Spell #13: Spell to Eradicate Racism
Rent from DeepDyve- Spell #13: Spell to Eradicate Racism
March nine white children to Birmingham dressed in their Sunday best. Water hose them down 16th street and across Kelly Ingram Park. Load all that survive on a slow moving train bound for the North.
Board them in the archives of the Schomburg, with only Malcolm’s letters to Betty for a night light. Line their beds with dog-eared copies Of Little Black Sambo.
Wave the scent of Lincoln Center Jazz and Romare Bearden under their noses until they can see Alvin Ailey dancers at the African Burial Ground.
Pack them sardine-tight on the subway during rush hour at 125th and Lenox. Make them ride from Harlem to Brooklyn with their eyes closed.
Sit them on wooden pews in an evening worship service at Sylvia’s Restaurant surrounded by a mass choir of Sunday dinners and knives and forks. [End Page 34]
Watch the holy vibrations mixed with lemons in the sweet tea change the molecular structure of their heart valves, inner ears and corneas.
Take them to a poetry slam. Sit them close enough to catch fire. Pray the Latino West Indian gay lesbian recovering voices touch them some place new.
Remove the invisible hoods from their heads. Set them free.
Watch them fly back home. [End Page 35]
Frank X Walker is the editor of PLUCK! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture and currently serves as Lecturer of English and Artist in Residence at Northern Kentucky University. He is the author of four collections of poetry and the co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets.
