Lowery's Prayer...

Lowery counterstated a vicious and threatening poem that overseers and owners said during slavery.

Black,
go back.
Brown,
stick around.

These lines were known by almost every one of my African American students when I taught for nine years of the 1970s in black higher education in Georgia and in South Carolina.

The slave overseer invited "brown" to "stick around" because of visual
evidence that another overseer had his way sexually earlier with brown's mother or grandmother. The poem is a lurid sexual overture by a white predator.

Lowery's prayer recalled this legacy of slavery and lanced some of the
poison -- straight from Lowery's lips to God's ear, and to the ears of anyone who has ears to hear!

From the perspective of being there, Rev. Lowry's prayer was full of grace, wisdom, and humor. Everyone around me, crammed together on the Mall, felt in his words the divisions of our past healing in the light of the new day. There was no hatred there, it was a celebration of a turning tide for our United States.

I thought the prayer was good. It had humor and it is from an old jazz song from the 1950s that was inspired by an oral tradition. It is a poem that is only offensive if you are looking to be offended. I am a 26 year old white male and felt very inspired by Rev. Lowery's hard earned weathered words. Thank you sir.