#title Reflections on Sunday
#author Ericka Huggins
#SORTauthors Ericka Huggins;
#date 1971
#source [[https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/126-march-4-17-1971/reflections-on-sunday]]
#lang en
#pubdate 2015-09-10
#notes Fifth Estate #126, March 4–17, 1971


<quote>
sounds that come from the soul are always the same
</quote>

<quote>
free
</quote>

<quote>
open sounds
</quote>

<quote>
giving
</quote>

<quote>
the kind that reach out
</quote>

<quote>
and touch—
</quote>

<quote>
that’s what our sisters did/minimum
</quote>

<quote>
touching maximum/sharing oppression
</quote>

<quote>
and the wish for its
</quote>

<quote>
removal...
</quote>

<quote>
feeling those sounds
</quote>

<quote>
seeing them felt on others
</quote>

<quote>
watching faces smile for the first time in months—
</quote>

<quote>
getting high—on the natural power of the
</quote>

<quote>
people to resist/to smile/to laugh/to sing
</quote>

<quote>
shout/love/give
</quote>

<quote>
even here...
</quote>

<quote>
wild hair, funky guitar
</quote>

<quote>
long hair funky voice (someone said bessie smith
</quote>

<quote>
came to mind)
</quote>

<quote>
hair—all lengths, legs, arms, smiles, music—SISTERS—and us...
</quote>

<quote>
raggedy peacoats, cotton dresses, rocking,
</quote>

<quote>
swaying
</quote>

<quote>
enjoying it
</quote>

<quote>
screaming
</quote>

<quote>
crying too—even if not too many
</quote>

<quote>
let the tears fall free
</quote>

<quote>
us—black/brown/white/poor—SISTERS
</quote>

<quote>
and it was all a total exchange
</quote>

<quote>
of energy
</quote>

<quote>
communication
</quote>

<quote>
even if we did not share words
</quote>

<quote>
we all knew their soul—songs were
</quote>

<quote>
saying
</quote>

<quote>
we understand
</quote>

<quote>
we know
</quote>

<quote>
we can see what amerika is doing
</quote>

<quote>
to you—mother/daughter/child/woman
</quote>

<quote>
of oppression—
</quote>

<quote>
we can see, they sung —
</quote>

<quote>
and our voices answered their guitar
</quote>

<quote>
horns flute—voice—cowbell—tambourine demand for freedom with an unspoken’ right on
</quote>

<quote>
...a feeling there that one day—soon—
</quote>

<quote>
all people will be free...and
</quote>

<quote>
we left
</quote>

<quote>
stronger
</quote>

<quote>
able to smile (for a moment)
</quote>

<quote>
till we returned to
</quote>

<quote>
rules that degrade
</quote>

<quote>
schedules that destroy sanity
</quote>

<quote>
racism that they cannot
</quote>

<quote>
sexism that rapes us of our womanhood...
</quote>

<quote>
and the locks, keys, windows, walls, doors,
</quote>

<quote>
threats
</quote>

<quote>
warnings
</quote>

<quote>
bribes that harden our hearts and
</quote>

<quote>
chain our souls....
</quote>

<quote>
the time
</quote>

<quote>
must be
</quote>

<quote>
seized
</quote>

<quote>
venceremos!
</quote>