Poet Nia McAllister reads her poem "Say Her Name."
Say Her Name
They locked up History today
Barred the doors | threw away the key
And called her truth False
Four walls between her and her children
Said | hush \ these walls not for talking only homewrecking
Here we learn Grievance cannot be rehearsed
Justice only got catcalled once today
(not bad for a missing woman)
If she’s invisible in the first place, who’s to say she was ever here?
Sis got taken too--Now we take to the streets saying
No Justice
No Peace!
We yell our sisters’ names against the chorus of
What’d she have on?
To which we cry Defiance.
So she was asking for it?
To which we remind them
Nobody’s got time to look inviting
when there are revolutions growing beneath our tongues
What’s that? Couldn’t hear over all the white noise
Here we learn: Fragility doesn’t listen anyways
So as History tells us, we must repeat ourselves:
No Justice
No Peace.