El Hajj Malik Shabazz

El Hajj Malik Shabazz/who went through the changes and
came out Black and Shining and pointed the way

Who became a truth/and a positive action/and more
than a voice in the wind

Who became transformation we could see/and touch
Reality in spite of

Who shouted his truths/whispered his challenges
dared a whole generation to use his Strength

Whose Black-Spirituality was exploded into the air and we
inbreathed him and he became a part of me/and you
carry him in you/and he is restless and demands

Demands an Action past rhetoric/an Action that delivers
itself/a Love past sighing/a Love that creates today
full of the knowledge of Tomorrow and of what it Will/Be
unless we move to change it into what it Must/Be

El Hajj Malik Shabazz/who went through the changes
and became a Truth/and a positive action/and more than
a voice in the wind

Credit

Author

Mari Evans

Mari Evans was born in Toledo, Ohio, on July 16, 1923. Her father encouraged her writing by saving her first story, which Evans had written in the fourth grade and then printed in her school newspaper. Evans recounted the experience in her autobiographical essay, “My Father’s Passage” (1984). She studied fashion design at the University of Toledo before focusing on poetry. While working as an assistant editor at a manufacturing firm, she honed her craft.

Date Published

01/01/2007