“Do Not Forget”: Black History Poems by Naomi Johnson

 “Do Not Forget”: Black History Poems by Naomi Johnson 

This Black History Month,
I pause
heart bowed, soul lifted
to honor a man whose footsteps
still echo across America’s trembling ground.

Jesse Jackson,
gone at 82,
yet his voice still rises
like morning light over a nation
that once refused to see its own shadow.

He walked beside giants
shoulder to shoulder
with Martin Luther King Jr.
two sons of courage
pressing forward through storms
that tried to silence them.

Together they broke open doors
with truth,
with prayer,
with unshakable love for a people
who had been taught
that freedom was not made for them.

Their march was not only for Black America
it was a rising tide
lifting immigrants, women,
the faithful and the faithless,
the pushed aside,
the whispered about,
the unwelcome,
the unseen.

They stretched the definition of freedom
until it could finally reach
every corner of this country.

A Land Built on Wounds

Let us speak truth without trembling:
This nation was not founded on equality.
It was carved from stolen land
belonging to Indigenous hands
of brown and Black skin.

Its wealth was built
on backs that never broke
African ancestors
who endured what words cannot hold.

Enslavement.
Stolen children.
Bodies turned into labor.
Women violated.
Men lynched for existing.
Babies fed to beasts
by men who called themselves “masters.”

And still
our ancestors sang.
They resisted.
They rose.
They stitched freedom
into the very soil meant to bury them.

Their suffering funded America.
Their resilience shaped America.
Their blood watered the roots
of every right we now claim as law.

A Legacy Too Large to Ignore

It was their struggle
that opened the gates of opportunity
for every nationality, every faith, every identity
from the Caribbean to Asia,
from Europe to Latin America,
from queer to straight,
from oppressed to empowered.

All who find safety here,
all who find voice here,
walk on a path paved
by Black sacrifice.

So let no one forget
the price paid
by hands that received no payment.

America was built
on Black labor,
Black brilliance,
Black love,
Black survival.

And Jesse Jackson carried that truth
like a torch into the dark
reminding us that
none of us are free
until all of us are free.

A Message for the Month and Beyond

As we honor his life,
we honor every ancestor
whose breath became our bridge,
whose courage became our compass.

Let this month remind us:

Do not forget who paid the cost
for America’s freedoms.

Do not forget who fought
so civil rights could touch the world.

Do not forget the legacy
of Black strength
still guiding, still rising,
still undefeated.

With love and remembrance,
-Poet Naomi Johnson

Happy Black History Month.
May truth, honor, and memory
light our way forward.