by Saturn Lawson
We are the children
Of those who suffered through slavery
The ones who fought against segregation
The descendants of Tubman and Bridges
We are the children of those you couldn’t lynch
We are the children
Of those who threw the first stones
The ones who were victims of the trans panic defense
The descendants of Johnson and Rivera
We are the children of those who proved it wasn’t ‘just a phase’
We are the children
Of those who are so often fetishized
The ones who are the most underrepresented
The descendants of Sappho and DeLarverie
We are the children of those survivors of corrective rape
We are the children
Of those earning 84 cents to a man’s dollar
The ones deemed property of their husbands
The descendants of Addams and Curie
We are the children of those you failed to burn
We are the children
Saturn Lawson is an Animal Science major at LaGuardia. He wrote the poem “We Are the Children” to express the feelings and hardships of the many communities they are a part of.
* Names mentioned in the poem:
Harriet Tubman and Ruby Bridges
Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rae
Sappho and Stormé DeLarverie
Jane Addams and Marie Curie
