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 twenty-third 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.
In the marrow of Mississippi, a woman stood, Fannie, fierce in her bones, the kind of truth that makes a whip tremble, makes the night pause to listen to the grit in her voice, a hymn for us all. She carved the way with hands weathered and wise, planted seeds in the soil, where only courage survives, telling us freedom is a body bruised but unbroken, a voice, even when silence is the safest spoken.
Kamala steps where the echoes of Fannie still rise, with the same fire, she carries a nation in her eyes, the strength of a thousand daughters, born to fight, knowing the weight of a crown, the sharpness of light. In the chambers of power, she stands tall, relentless, for every woman who dared, for every “no” unanswered, she whispers back to history, reshaping what’s true, “Your pain is my power, your struggle my fuel.”
Sisterhood, a bond not of blood, but of shared breath, it’s the rhythm of heartbeats that defy death, a force that holds the world, yet remains unseen, lifting each other, one dream at a time, clean of the doubt they try to drown us in, but we rise, linked in purpose, wrapped in skin, forged by the fires of women who refused to bow, Fannie, Kamala—our sisters, our now.
In their name, we press forward, breaking every chain, for sisterhood is the revolution, fierce and humane.
©️MustafaSantiagoAli
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