The African Cry

Mama Africa,
Land of my ancestors' birth;
Source of all mankind,
the once Shangri la of mother earth.

Stir up the spirit of the Mau-Mau in vibrato on the bongo.
Your ways are far higher than the crags of the Kilimanjaro.
Let the cry for freedom ride the winds of the Serengeti,
 and the walls of segregation fall like confetti.

With careful utterances,
ransack the minds of the pig-headed souls.
Uhuru milele! Milele bure!
Adamantly, gluttons deprive her black gold.
In the villages, griots will invoke a new story.

Follow the way of the lion,
and watch out for the hyenas.
When the rivers are dry in Tanzania,
danger resides in the mud.
Remember; when liberty is threatened in Somalia,
 freedom is written in blood.
Blood stained her crevices with love;
black sons’ and black daughters’ blood.