Matt+A.,+Matt+J.+&+Jackson

bout those beautiful beautiful beautiful outasight black men with they afros walking down the street is the same ol danger but a brand new pleasure
 * __Nikki-Rosa__** **By Nikki Giovanni** childhood remembrances are always a drag if you’re Black you always remember things like living in Woodlawn with no inside toilet and if you become famous or something they never talk about how happy you were to have your mother all to yourself and how good the water felt when you got your bath from one of those big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in and somehow when you talk about home it never gets across how much you understood their feelings as the whole family attended meetings about Hollydale and even though you remember your biographers never understand your father’s pain as he sells his stock and another dream goes And though you’re poor it isn’t poverty that concerns you and though they fought a lot it isn’t your father’s drinking that makes any difference but only that everybody is together and youand your sister have happy birthdays and very good Christmases and I really hope no white person ever has cause to write about me because they never understand Black love is Black wealth and they’ll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy __**Beautiful Black Men**__**By Nikki Giovanni** i wanta say just gotta say something

sitting on stoops, in bars, going to offices running numbers, watching for their whores preaching in churches, driving their hogs walking their dogs, winking at me in their fire red, lime green, burnt orange royal blue tight tight pants that hug what i like to hug

jerry butler, wilson pickett, the impressions temptations, mighty mighty sly <span style="color: #ff0016; display: block; font-family: Courier; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">don't have to do anything but walk <span style="color: #ff0016; display: block; font-family: Courier; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">on stage <span style="color: #ff0016; display: block; font-family: Courier; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">and i scream and stamp and shout <span style="color: #ff0016; display: block; font-family: Courier; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">see new breed men in breed alls <span style="color: #ff0016; display: block; font-family: Courier; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">dashiki suits with shirts that match <span style="color: #ff0016; display: block; font-family: Courier; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">the lining that compliments the ties <span style="color: #ff0016; display: block; font-family: Courier; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">that smile at the sandals <span style="color: #ff0016; display: block; font-family: Courier; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">where dirty toes peek at me <span style="color: #ff0016; display: block; font-family: Courier; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">and i scream and stamp and shout <span style="color: #ff0016; display: block; font-family: Courier; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">for more beautiful beautiful beautiful <span style="color: #ff0016; display: block; font-family: Courier; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">black men with outasight afros

__**Our Poems**__

 * A Note On the History of Segregation**
 * By Matt Abate**

__Back in my Grandpa's day__ __And all those years before__ __They had this idea__

__This idea was that some people__ __like an opinion that apples are better than lemons because lemons are yellow__ __that white people were better than black people.__ __Who said that was right?__ __Who said that was fair?__

__Then some people saw the truth__ __Mamie Till, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther.__ __Those stuck-up Southerners couldn't see the light.__

__Finally now everyone understands__ __That your character counts most of all__ __and not the color of your skin.__ __But I worry__ __what if History repeats itself?__

GOLDEN RULE By Jackson Posnik I remember when we was walking down the street Minding our own business When some white honkie stopped us Told us to give him our money

Said he was better than us Because of the color of our skin But I know better It doesn’t matter how you look

What matters is your character Somebody like him cold and mean You don’t want to be like that You want to obey the golden rule

Treat others how you want to be treated That's the key All people will like or respect you Then you’ll see

Matt R

Racism Back in the day when the sun rose People awoke with hatred for people just because of their skin.

back in the day nobody cared or did anything to stop it.

Now in our day This thing Racism Is almost gone.

But will it always be this way or will it go back to those terrible days of hatred…

Nikk Giovanni was born June 7, 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee. She later moved to Cincinatti, Ohio, and spent most of her childhood there. She currently teaches ant Verginia Tech as the professor of english. She attended many schools, including grad school at University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University. She was even kicked out of Fisk University! Nikki Giovanni is also a very celebrated poet. She has won three NAACP Image Awards for literature in 1998, the Langston Hughes Award for Distinguished Contributions to Arts and Letters in 1996, as well as more than twenty honorary degrees from national colleges and universities. She has been awarded keys to more than a dozen cities. These include New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, and New Orleans. In addition, Giovanni was the first recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award while being named Woman of the Year in several magazines such as Ebony and Essence. She is now a teacher of English and the Gloria D. Smith Professor of Black Studies at Virginia Tech, where she has taught since 1987. Giovanni has written many different books of poetry for multiple types of readers that include adults and children alike. These are some of her publications:

· Blues: For All the Changes: New Poems, Morrow (New York, NY), 1999.
As you can clearly see from her many books Nikki Giovanni is very a talented and inspirational person.