This is one of a series of poems exploring Manhattan’s African Burial Ground. Learn more.
A free New York Negro living in an attic with two enslaved New York Negroes: 1790s
Freedom?! I live in a lawyer’s clamped
attic with Minnie and Cudjoe
who ain’t free: same much the same
they do behind the lawyer’s bolted
doors. Also cain’t vote, testify, no
ponderin’ on a jury. No rights.
Slave codes. They fought
because of tax sum’thin—without
reprezintashun. Where’s my war?
Copyright © 2018 by David Mills.