Viewing page 52 of 62

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

What Shall We Tell Our Children 1973

What shall we tell our children who are black?
What shall we tell our children who are white?
What shall we tell  children of every race and hue?
For all children are the children of all of us
And all of us bear responsibility for all children
What shall we tell them?
How can we show them the conditions of their lives
So they will see how they can change them?
Those who are poverty stricken in the midst of plenty
Who must live in rat-infested slums
While decent homes stand empty
Who go to bend hungry
While grocery shelves are heavy
Who huddle in tattered rags
While racks in stores are sagging
Who yearn for a good education
But languish in programmed illiteracy
Whose intellectual growth is stunted
And whose ignorance is compounded
While the Academics produce more drones for the labor colony
What shall we tell them?
How can we show them the conditions of their lives
So they will see how they can change them?
What shall we tell our children
The men and women of the future?
We shall tell them the truth
It is our bounded duty to tell them the truth
It may be painful. We must tell them the truth
We may be criticized. We must tell them the truth
We may be castigated. We must tell them the truth
The truth shall be, shall show them the conditions of their lives
Of a glorified way of life, the greatest in the world

Which is not concerned with people, but with profits
Not with the well-being of the many, but with the interests of a few
Not with the welfare and future of the people
But only with the profit-making present
We shall tell them the truth about a way of life
The greatest in the world
Where freedom and equality is granted to every man, woman and child
Where everyone, providing he is willing to do what is