The Rag Blog: Poetry from Bob Lee

25 January 2007

Poetry from Bob Lee

9-24-06 Words of Dismissal

You know, as we work for justice for everybody
each of us gets more free.

So when straight people like me
work for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people
we get more free.

But that's not all.

When white people
work for black people
we get more free.

When men
work for women
we get more free.

When each of us
when all of us
work for the other ones
for justice
we get more free.

And this is our work
this is the work of liberation
to keep expanding our circle
to keep saying
in every way we know how
that in this church
everybody is welcome
that in this place
everybody can get more free

more free than we once were
when we first found each other.

Amen.

---- Bob Lee, Da Mayor of Houston's 5th Ward,
at a reunion conference of the Chicago Black Panther Party

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