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 129th in our Democracy and Hope Series. This series will highlight hopeful aspects about our Democracy using various genres including poems.
i still hear her name like a hymn hummed under breath, like mama’s hands shaking a tambourine while the water kept rising.
streets turned to seas, and we learned how to pray with our lips pressed against rooftops, calling God by every name we knew.
they said “natural disaster” like it wasn’t levees breaking under the weight of neglected promises, like it wasn’t Black bodies stranded in a country that claimed to love them.
we carried our dead in memory and our living in plastic bags, we stitched our faith from wet photographs and missing names, built new songs out of sirens and screams no one came to answer.
and still— we remember how the sun returned, how brass horns rose from broken porches, how a second line led us back to breath, how we danced barefoot in borrowed streets, telling the world we are here, we are always here, we are more than their forgetting.
Katrina tried to drown us, but couldn’t. America tried to erase us, but didn’t. and the river, still swollen with memory, carries our names like a prayer no one can silence.
©️MustafaSantiagoAli
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