“We woke up this morning with our minds stayed on freedom.” – Woke Up This Morning by the Staple Singers

We love you. We see you. We have always been each others salvation in times of uncertainty and crisis.

We affirm our rightful place as Southern LGBTQ Black, Immigrant, Indigenous, working class and rural people who are even more committed to bring about liberation in our lifetime.

We got questions about the path forward but we know together we will do what we must and make what we need to protect and defend our communities.

Here is a love offering from the SONG political family to carry us through the next few days as we reflect, gather, cry, wipe off our tears, kiss our babies, honor our ancestors’ sacrifices and prepare the way for liberation in our lifetimes.

Read by SONG co-founder Pat Hussain
Written by Hermelinda Cortés

Election Day 2016

A sacred ritual it is not
But Choosing Day, as Whitman said,
“It is not sweet or sunny,
but it could be war.”
This is war
What we been sayin’
I’m not with her,
but I’m with us
No pipelines. No prisons.
Only taco stands on every corner and
pussies that grab back
Only fund Black futures
And bazta Arpaio
Only reparations
And an end to deportations

We’re born in flames
We go by Zami , Gloria, and Marsha
We say pay it no mind
pero la lucha sigue sigue

Dream
Vote
Organize

Hold our heads up
We don’t pretend
An antidote to
Democracy in demise
There is no fooling the minds’ eye

You call us brujxs
Pero
We see your trickery
Through our cat calls of
“Freedom isn’t free”

Dream
Vote
Organize

This is self-defense
Offense
And the art of war.
Our bones know and our peoples know
There is no vote without no dream
There is no dream without
Each one
Teach one

Sin ganas
Sin miedo

This is the revolt of the cockroach people
The rise up of the buffalo
The swamp songs of defiance
The bash back
of maroons, bull daggers, and wet backs.

We call out.

Dream
Vote
Organize

For Syria
For Oaxaca
For Appalachia

This is not our cross to bare,
but we bare it
From countryside to mountainside
To oceanside to city streets

We act on. We hope on.
We dance on. We fuck on.
We give grace
We bake bread
We hold hands
We harmonize in the key of free

Hollerin’

Dream
Vote
Organize

We don’t wait on scraps of the pie
But a notion of a potion
We can surmise out of thin air
The way we make soup
Without dollars
And turn pesos into golden kernels.

We harvest resistance to empire

We sing out.
We pray out.
We shout out.

Dream
Vote
Organize

We knock doors.
We build platforms.
And we pour into streets.

Dream
Vote
Organize

We listen for the whispers beyond graves
For the wisdom in the stars
For the will of the spirits
Of the warriors in the wind

Dream
Vote
Organize

We are not angels
Our ghosts will haunt your ghosts
We refuse to be the last generation
We will love in these war years
We will build bridges out of our backs
Because that is what we know of surviving

Dream
Vote
Organize

We know kindred creeds and freedom songs
We know love among cannibals
Rapture, sin, and salvation
We know massacre, muse, and manifesto
But we want more

Dream
Vote
Organize

Today, tomorrow, this lifetime, and the next