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Just A Song?
By Marcus Lee
Let me tell you what it felt like.
I don’t mean the headline version.
Definitely not the “it was just school spirit,” sermon.
What it felt like…
I can still hear the band kick in…
Brass grinning, drumsticks spinning,
gym lights flickering off polished ambition.
Pride in the air.
Pep rally glare.
Everybody singing like nothing was there.
Except one kid two rows down, jaw tight, hands folded like he’s holding something fragile.
A girl beside him stares at the floor lines like they might open and let her fall through.
Because when that song started.
it didn’t just start… It carried.
It carried cotton dust and auction blocks.
It carried a war fought not for land,
but for the right to keep hands
wrapped around Black necks…
and call it an economy.
You hear a melody?
I hear memory.
You hear pride?
I hear property.
And I know,
I know what they said.
“It’s tradition.”
“It’s where we’re from.”
“It’s not about that anymore.”
But here’s the problem with “anymore”…
History doesn’t close doors
just because you repaint floors.
That tune once moved men
who marched to defend
the idea that my people
were less than human.
Not metaphorically.
Legally.
Ink turned skin into inventory…
Signatures scripting supremacy, statutes stacking status where “person” got portioned selectively.
So when it echoed through those bleachers, it wasn’t neutral.
It was a rehearsal of a past that never fully dispersed.
And you know the wild part?
Some of them didn’t mean harm.
They meant home.
But home, for one, has been harm to another.
That’s the tension.
That’s the part nobody likes to mention.
See, symbols don’t age out
just because someone new is holding them up.
That flag?
That refrain?
“I wish I was in the land of cotton…”
a melody born in a field where Black breath was a bargaining chip.
Even after freedom was signed,
six months later
hatred aligned.
Reorganized. Refined.
Put on robes. Built codes.
Changed uniforms but kept the goals.
So yeah, sure… call it “integrated.”
Refurbished… Even renovated.
But don’t confuse relocated
with eradicated.
Because the past wasn’t gone.
It just put a lil’ cologne on.
A scent sprayed over old sweat and smoke,
hoping nobody notices what the room used to smell like.
A hundred years is pretty short
when the structure supports
what it swears it divorced.
So when that song swelled…
crowd compelled, spirits propelled,
you expected compliance?
No.
Standing wasn’t theater.
It was a declination to feature
in our own erasure.
So don’t mistake a raised fist
for a wish to resist.
Sometimes it’s oxygen… confidence,
When the room romanticizes,
what once weaponized your existence.
We weren’t rejecting a region.
We were rejecting revision.
Because revision just repackages.
Polishes the passages.
Turns pain into pageant.
“It’s just heritage.”
Okay.
But heritage for who?
For you, it’s porch light and memory.
For me, it’s smoke where the trees used to be.
For you, it’s birthplace.
For me, it’s worth erased.
For you, it’s anthem.
For me, it’s anathema.
Impact outweighs intent.
Every. Single. Time.
So you don’t get to romanticize what minimized us,
then act surprised
when we don’t harmonize.
And when it boils over?
don’t shrink it to just “kids fighting.”
That friction took decades to write.
Layered in polite dismissals.
In subtle whistles.
In “It’s not about race.”
while standing in the place it shaped
We were told,
“It’s not about you.”
But it was always about us.
About who counted.
About who was accounted for.
About who was mounted on blocks
and then discounted as stock…
So yeah… we stood.
Because sitting felt scripted.
And silence felt complicit.
And walking out?
That wasn’t rebellion.
That was refusal.
If this is the soundtrack,
we’re not scoring our own exclusion.
So let me say,
Change may crawl
But resistance climbs.
From fields to files.
From bridges to trials.
From whispers to waves.
You can play the song.
But you don’t get to dictate
how it vibrates
in a body that knows its history.
And maybe that’s the shift…
Not calling the melody evil.
Not calling the memory equal.
But admitting
that what feels like pride
on one side
can feel like pressure
still measured
in another’s spine.
So next time somebody shrugs and says,
“It’s just music.”
Ask them…
For who?
Because if you listen, really listen…
past the brass and the blast of nostalgia, you’ll hear it.
Not just harmony… Not just a song.
But the long,
unfinished
conversation
America keeps trying
to hum
instead of have.
Meet the Poet – Marcus Lee
Marcus Lee, is a spoken-word artist and storyteller whose work fuses rhythmic lyricism with emotional honesty. Centered on fatherhood, marriage, identity, and resilience, his poetry transforms his lived experiences into pieces that are both intimate and impactful.
A husband and father of three, Marcus brings a grounded, authentic voice to every stage. He has been writing for over 20 years, has performed at numerous shows, is a member of the spoken-word and poetry organization Rhyme N Chatt, and is published in two poetry anthologies.
His continued goal is to use his craft as a vehicle for connection, representation, and transformation, inviting audiences to confront hard truths while holding on to hope.
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