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 twentieth 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 event
we are the thunder before the break, the hum of hearts, the breath held tight, the waiting. the waiting. we are the children with hands up, the mothers clutching dreams too heavy to carry, the fathers lost in a system that forgot their faces, we are the shout beneath the skin, a nation stitched together by struggle and song, we are the whispers of hope, the ones who learned to sing through clenched teeth, we are the many, the ones who keep coming, no matter the night, no matter the storm.
she is our name spoken aloud, her voice the bridge between us, her story the story we have lived a thousand times but never seen printed on the pages of power. she carries us, every name, every fight, every prayer sent up from the corner of a room where we bent down low, asked for strength, asked for justice, she is the answer that comes not as a whisper, but as a roar, a yes that shakes the very ground beneath our feet.
we, the people, rise in her voice, a chorus of the unseen, the unheard, those whose silence was never by choice, we are the shadows stepping into the light, the echoes finding form, we are the ones who waited, who watched, who wondered when our time would come. now, she stands, and we stand with her, her stride our stride, her fight our fight, her triumph the bloom of our collective will.
in her, we are more than the sum of our wounds, more than the scars we carry like maps, we are the possibility of something greater, something fuller, something true. she is our reflection, the one who looks back at us and says, i see you. i hear you. i am you. and in her voice, we are heard, we are the many, and together we sing, our voices rising like the sun, like justice, like a new day, finally breaking the night.
©️MustafaSantiagoAli
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