When We Take A Knee, America It Is Of Thee We Sing

By John W. Fountain

By John W. Fountain

My Sunday column in the Chicago Sun-Times… Reflections on what hate did to Mamie Till’s boy Emmett and what it continues to do in this nation ought to make us all kneel:

“…For purple mountain majesties, above thy fruited plain…” With lucrative paychecks dangling, our soul America still seeks to claim. Daring us to speak our piece or kneel amid hate’s unyielding weight.

Seeking to erase from our psyche and souls and from history’s slate the tragedy inflicted by one nation upon its own sons. Pretending that racism is now dead and at last gone. America who seeks to squelch our travail and bittersweet song.

We sing on. Perennially with brother Marvin Gaye: “What’s going on?” Until freedom rings: “Picket lines and picket signs. Don’t punish me with brutality…” Don’t afflict me with the tentacles of slavery.

FOUNTAIN: When we take a knee, America, it is of thee we sing
"There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love..." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I am still without…chicago.suntimes.com