ChickenBones: A Journal
for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes
Home (Books, DVDs, Music)
www.nathanielturner.com 
Mammy Barbara once gave / Baby George a star-
Spanked napkin to wipe / His brow. She forgot / The offices of toilet tissue
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Books by Jerry W. Ward Jr.
Trouble the Water (1997) / Black Southern Voices (1992) / The Richard Wright Encyclopedia (2008) / The Katrina Papers
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Blue Voices for the Fourth of July
By Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
The Fourth of July, Frederick,
Isnt a what but a fifth —
A bottle of dreadful freedom.
And sometimes, Frederick,
It is the baptism of greed.
Gluttony ate its declaration of independence,
An act of national security.
Once in a museum of eracism,
I epiphanied, went unblind.
Then I saw a billionaire
So dumb he thought
Iron maidens of pride are tanning beds.
Mammy Barbara once gave
Baby George a star-
Spanked napkin to wipe
His brow. She forgot
The offices of toilet tissue.
He forgot the remorse of toilets,
The envy of tissues.
Sevens the color
Of your lovers face
When too old to dream
You let lust go last,
The blue, the white, the red
Muscles ejaculating mess/
Ages for that world.
Black comes over all.
You so bad
We hear you write
Wrath with a bomb.
Frederick, why did not you,
Asserting the manhood of the slave,
Announce the sloth of slavers
Harbored fecal contagion?
posted 8 July 2007
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The Katrina Papers, by Jerry W. Ward, Jr. $18.95 / The Richard Wright Encyclopedia (2008)
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The White Masters of the World
From The World and Africa, 1965
W. E. B. Du Bois Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization (Fletcher)
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan / The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll / Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for Slavery
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804 / January 1, 1804 — The Founding of Haiti
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updated 19 July 2011
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