They took my past from me, well, more as though they snatched it from my weak hands

As though my people were not worthy of such documentation. 

They wrote a sanitized version of my history in the textbooks I was to learn from,

And only now, hundreds of years later, am I beginning to get some of my real history back.

Millions of narratives lost, rather, 

Silenced.

The name of my great-great-grandfather I couldn’t tell you. 

No one in my family could tell you.

It is not as though we have not tried to find out his name; we just simply

Can’t.

Something as simple as a name only a hundred thirty years back we’ll never find, yet some get

To trace their heritage back to the 1500s all because of a difference in skin color.

My great-grandmother was one of the strongest women I have ever known,

But by her tiny frame and frail limbs, you would never know it. 

She protested during the Civil Rights Movement even after the recent passing of her husband Because her heart told her the pain of her people was more important than her own personal 

Pain.

If my great-grandmother is any indication of the history and character of my people, then we are Fighters.