It is challenging to capture several centuries of history in one short lyric poem. The Atlantic slave trade alone lasted over 400 years. Slavery and the domestic trade persisted after the Atlantic trade ended in 1808.

America fought a Civil War over the Southern states’ proclaimed states’ rights to traffic human beings as property. Although slavery formally ended with the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, the Northern states failed to uphold the promises of the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War.

In its place, Jim Crow laws bolstered segregation and racial inequality. Institutions in all states were openly racist. Generations of free Black men and women grew up under this system. Meanwhile, hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan freely used terror and vigilante justice against people of color.

The mid-20th century Civil Rights Era reframed these unjust laws as human rights violations. Yet, discriminatory practices like housing segregation, redlining, the wealth gap, and the school-to-prison pipeline continue.

“Declaration” is a remarkable and chilling poem because you could set it in any era of American history, and it would resonate with the experiences of Black America. The poem is dripping with meaning from any period.