Poetry collection by Gary Copeland Lilley. Lilley's collection addresses flashpoints in African American history including the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898 and Hurricane Katrina. Second edition with new poems.
EXCERPT:
Colonel Waddell on the Morning of November 10, 1898
from High Water Everywhere
They vote Republican black. They walk
Our streets with their heads up, with more freedom
Than a white man, and now we have been made
To conduct our city's business under
The rule of carpet-baggers and negroes.
White men will suffer eternally
If we do not honor that it's our blood
That makes North Carolina sacred ground.
If we don't act they'll soon have the land
And all our grand history that's on it:
The Confederate graves, all the gray men
From all our families, to their proud deaths
Give glory, honor the white way of life.
Let black bodies choke the Cape Fear River.