This isn’t a book review since I don’t do those on my personal blog, but I am reading a couple of novels in verse – at the same time, because one of them, ONE STEP FORWARD, by Poetry Friday alum Marci Flinchum Atkins is an intense read during our current historical moment and I admit to bursting into tears periodically and needing to put it down. Today I share three poems from the book that really struck a chord in me.
I admit that I haven’t thought a lot about women’s suffrage since school. Once we learned about the way that Black women were shoved to the back of the parade – literally – the whole ideological argument about the rights of women left a sour taste in my mouth. I expected women not of my time to be able to hold multiple truths, and some of them simply could not, and it is what it is. Even if they were not marching for my rights, their work was important. I can imagine the brilliant classroom discussions this book will provoke – about how long a movement takes (Montgomery Bus Boycott = 382 days), and how much it costs to bring about change (Jailed. Beaten. Raped. Hung. Force Fed. Starved.) My whole life I have heard the phrase “freedom isn’t free,” and I’ve pretty well hated it, because it’s a bit smug of a statement, usually bandied about by those who are merely trying to silence others, but… it’s true. Freedom isn’t free. And in many cases, neither are the people who believe they are. Pushing back against racism, classism, bigotry and fascism has a cost – that all of us must shoulder. Learning the historical realities of these costs has been keeping me up nights since I was a child who learned to read and got into historical accounts of the Klan that I wasn’t ready for.
I have these shudders reading Civil Rights books – because I hate being shouted at, I hate people being angry with me, and I cringe from bullies. Honestly, I do not know how we ever achieved suffrage. I do not know how we ever achieved manumission. Cruelty seems so easy for some, and courage erodes so easily and is so hard won. We will all have to be much, much braver – and keep marching.
