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The Awakening

 

Gave up her dream to play classical

music on the big stage

Child prodigy at three

So much time invested. Isolated herself

Caught up in her fantasy world. Her friends

Were Bach, and Beethoven and occasionally

Brahms and Debussy.. She’d spend hours fostering a

Relationship with them only to find out that

There were forces outside of her that

Wouldn’t let her run free.

She could withstand the ridicule but never

Did she imagine that her dream wouldn’t

Become a reality…….because of her skin

Played by the rules, didn’t understand that

There was a different standard for Blackness…

And then………September 15th, 1963  happened…..

Four little girls died that day

Taking her head out of the clouds she began

To see things in a different light.

It became evident to her that she needed

To dream a new dream – not Martin’s dream

Four little girls died that day

And she got mad!!! No longer dreaming in

Color – her dreams came to her in black and

White.

She began to sing with a different tone.

Love songs no longer light and airy but

Dark and daunting…..”I put a spell on you”…..

Love for one became love for many, her

People dying in the streets.

She took off her wig and looked in

The mirror….undeniably she recognized her blackness

And was proud of it.  To be young, gifted and black!

Four little girls died that day

Her heart broke, she

Cried for those girls, who would never

Become women. New day dawning

“Everything must change”…….

Four little girls died that day

She needed to honor their memory. She longed

To speak out – somebody had to hear her…..

Somebody had to sit up and take notice

She poured her soul into her music “Mississippi

Goddam!!” She began to sing about that

“Strange Fruit” those trees were bearing.

Her soul began to ache. Her tears dripped

blood tears……

Nina, not so angelic, not so sweet and gentle

She got mad.

Her quest for freedom started boiling up

Inside her. What about the girls? what about

Medgar Evers? what about all the injustices?

Someone had to tell the stories. No time for

Waiting, what were we waiting for?

Four little girls died that day…..

And how many girls since then, the souls and

Spirits of so many lives taken…..she longed

For freedom to be able to fly above the polluted

Air that was choking and killing her, killing her

people……..

She couldn’t run from it, as long and as hard

As she hit those piano keys, things stayed the

Same. No more playing in major keys,

Minor keys became her mantra, the sounds

Often haunting and dark…..

Four little girls,

Four women never to be…What do they call me?

Strange, low-lying fruit…..voices from the earth

crying out and Nina began to scream louder

“Everybody knows about Mississippi,

Everybody knows about Alabama, everybody

knows about Mississippi – Goddamn!!!”

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