We Insist - Freedom Now

We Insist by Max Roach was released in 1960 during the height of the civil rights movement in the US just years removed from the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Today I listened to the last track on that album - Triptych: Prayer, Protest, Peace. Abbey Lincoln was the featured vocalist on this piece. I come back to this song time and again. It reflects a mood and a time that is eerily similar to what we are seeing and experiencing right now. 

The start of the piece is plaintive as prayer is meant to be at times. A beckoning for a new day. Hopeful and meditative. But there is the undertone to the vocal that hints at an uneasiness. That what is being asked for will not come easy. It is the middle of the track that echoes the current time. Lincoln cries out with the anguish we all feel. The anger. The horror. The disgust because we keep reliving these nightmares of oppression time and time again. It stirs the soul and allows it to drip with the righteous anger we should feel when we see someone cry out for breathe and have that cry go unheeded. That cry has gone unheeded for too long. That cry has been ignored for too long. I am not going to insist that we now take the time to reflect on what has been. No. I am going to insist that we cry even louder each and every day. We must no longer be silent. We must no longer be distracted from this central issue that eats away at what it means to live in a civil society. No matter what happens in the intervening days, we must remain committed to and hold onto this anger. I am not ashamed to feel this anger. NO! Cry out louder tomorrow than you did today. Cry out for George Floyd. Cry out for Ahmaud Arbery. Cry out for Breona Taylor.  Remind those in power that they have a duty to continue to do the work that has been ignored for far too long. And if they don't, it is time to wrest control from those in power to ensure that the systemic injustice that has prevailed for too long will no longer be tolerated.  NO! WE INSIST.