Inspired by the Life of Claudette Colvin
I wasn’t light-skinned
My hair wasn’t “good” like hers
But I cared
About my people/about being stuck at the back of the bus/about my friend
Jeremiah Reeves
Who played the drums in a Jazz band
He stood behind bars because
They tortured him
To speak/to confess
To raping a white woman
That summer–
He didn’t.
I couldn’t handle it
My heart pounded with the
Bravery of Tubman
And the power of Truth
They didn’t want me in the history books
But there is power in youth
In being 15
In 1955
And not moving
‘Cause there are rights they should abide by
I know it is my constitutional right
To sit in a seat I paid for
I didn’t fight with the officer
After he yanked me out of the chair
And my books flew in their air
Notes from history class
Flying away like blackbirds
Free
They dragged me off the bus
Stuffed me in the police car like luggage
Called me a thing
Guessed my bra size like I was
Nothing
I didn’t know where I was going
At the time
People got burned alive for speaking their mind
Or hung from trees for doing something like me
They put me in a jail cell
There is no sound quite like the locking of a door
Eternal
I said the Lord’s Prayer
And repeated Psalm 23
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for You are with me”
Reverend bailed me out
And my mother
Held me
Cydney Brown is the 2023 Northeast Regional Youth Poet Laureate, 2020-2021 Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate, and author of “Daydreaming.” She is a Sophomore at Northwestern University and has been writing poetry since she was in 5th grade. Brown has been featured in The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, 6abc, Philadelphia Citizen, and Fox29.
Featured image by Etty Fidele.
