Mustafa Santiago Ali
Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali is the Executive Vice President of Conservation & Justice for the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), former Interim Chief of Programs at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and Instructor at American University. He is the Founder and CEO of Revitalization Strategies. He also serves as a commissioner for The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). He is an award-winning writer and poet focused on social justice. Dr. Ali is frequently seen on television, including appearances on MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, VICE, FUSE, BET, National Geographic, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and Democracy NOW! Mustafa is also a regular guest on Roland Martin Unfiltered, Black News Channel, Tavis Smiley Show, The Dean Obeidallah Show, and many others…
Editor's Note: This poem is the 72nd in our Democracy and Hope Series. This series will highlight hopeful aspects about our Democracy using various genres including poems, interviews, short stories, and articles about political events
we learned to whisper our dreams underground long before they called us dangerous for wanting more more than the dirt underfoot, more than breath held shallow like the smallest hope could choke us.
and still we rose, hands calloused, bound to one another by the fear and the faith that one day—one day— we would build a world fit for the brave, for those who refused to be still and silent, even when the air itself was hostile.
they tried to bury our voices in the clay, shot us down in fields, broke our bones for daring to scrawl our names in ink, to shape this world in the swell of our dreams, to call it ours as much as theirs. they thought killing our bodies could kill the spirit but the spirit rose, defiant, pressing its cheek to the ground, learning the names of every ancestor so it could rise with a fire not even death could smother.
November 5, 1968— Shirley Chisholm stands, unbossed, unbought, a wound turned into a woman, turned into a hammer. her steps split the concrete, her hands, unbreakable building something stronger than fear, laying bricks of rebellion where she stood. she carved her name in the halls they tried to keep, first Black woman to vote her way into their history— her spirit, the marrow of all that was left unburned.
and today we stand, bones of her bones, voting with fists clenched tight, Kamala’s name on our tongues like a spell, like a storm, like every mother and daughter who held the line, who took the blows, the bullets, the blood— so that today, we lift her higher than they could ever reach.
look what God did—she is here on the edge of tomorrow, holding history’s gaze, telling the world it cannot turn away from what we’ve become. a Black and South Asian woman at the nation’s helm, rising where we were told we were not meant to rise, laughing where we were told to bow.
we are the dream undimmed by all they tried to kill, the echoes of footsteps that dared to walk free, an endless river fed by the courage of hands that bled— yet here we are, eyes lifted to the light we made. look what God did, look what we did— dreams wild and breathing, dreams refused to die, spines straight and singing—see us now, oh see us fly.
©️MustafaSantiagoAli
#Poetry #USElection2024 #Vote2024 #KamalaHarris #ProudBlue #ShirleyChisholm @harris_wins @VP