Oceans of Love -- The Journey

Books by Dee Freeman

Poetry She Wrote I: Oh, Magnify Him / Poetry She Wrote II: Reflections of the Heart / Poetry She Wrote III: Love Ever Flowing

Oceans of Love: To Us From Us

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The Journey

By Dee Freeman

Pained humiliation beset as we were

Snatched from loved ones

Torn from our homeland

Forced onto our first journey

Becoming sometimes our last journey--the dreaded passage

Coffled. Shackled. Deemed cargo.

Forced to accept horrid,

Dehumanizing conditions--

Worth measured only by exchange of copper.

The journey saw us tightly packed.

That horrible hole--¦incited, uncontrollable rage.

Fury and hatred seeped up from the pits of our hearts.

Salty tears welled in an abominable abyss, then

Rained down from our eyes, to drip and sting our

Bruised, splintered, and withered skin.

This journey towed us over a raging ocean

Ships tossed and tore our bodies.

Violent waters tormented our viciously violated souls.

Despair, depression, disease, death -

Our constant companions across these cursed waters,

That swallowed us by the millions.

Tarnished waters now hold our ancestors' souls,

Who join hands with those who died before.

Muffled cries from the ocean floor

Call to us. Speaking, voicing their anguish,

yet sharing their eternal love, strength,

Passion and determination. They tell us

With the aide of Divine Providence,

We will survive.

They whisper words of encouragement.

Their past cleared the way for our future.

Their sacrifice of yesterday paid forward

Our advancement of today.

Their dying enabled our rebirth.

We continue this journey. No longer

Over the oceans, but over the highways of this world;

Over the byways of the minds of people.

We continue the journey of resolve to reclaim our dignity,

Regain our rightful place in a world of continuous movement.

We continue the journey until our ancestors feel

Proud of our accomplishment and our resolution.

We continue, never to turn back.

We'll emerge from the hole,

Undaunted, stronger;

With celebration in our hearts;

Able to sustain any further journey life offers.

Source: Oceans of Love: To Us From Us by Dee Freeman / call 1-517 321-3122

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Delores King-Freeman, (Dee to family), is a motivated and compelling poet, author, producer and host, who is using her love, skills and creativity to help readers enjoy words and rhythmic rhyme. She left the south during the sixties to follow her dream, which proved extremely elusive. Now, finally catching and living that dream, she happily immerses herself in her passion-writing. Freeman has previously published well received books of poetry entitled
Oceans of Love: To Us From Us and Poetry She Wrote I: Oh, Magnify Him.

Both have been placed in the school system and libraries around town. She has had a number of poems appear in magazines, anthologies and new papers where some have been recognized with awards for their inspirational, even motivational message.

She was presented with a commendation for the City and City Council during Black History Month in 2005. She continues to provide the Lansing State Journal with an article, book review or word of inspiration on a monthly basis. She co-hosts “poetry slams” held at various locations throughout the Greater Lansing area.

Freeman looks forward to expanding her Poetree-N-Motion TV program which shares information of community events, history tidbits, book reviews and has guests with current community issues. It airs in Lansing on Comcast channel 16 -Thursday @ 3:30PM and East Lansing channel 30 WELM on Tuesday @ 7:00PM. She is also a talented musical lyricist, hoping to have her work recorded in the near future.

Presently, Freeman is in the completion stage of her first fiction novel-a project in conjunction with a movie producer. This novel—Wild, Untamed Michigan: The Way It Was—is scheduled to hit the stores in early or mid 2006, with the second of the “Poetry, She Wrote” series—following close behind.

Freeman thoroughly enjoys writing and sharing her poetry through presentations at special annual luncheons, tributes honoring the leadership of community and churches, and other venues throughout the region. She honestly feels her words will benefit all who read them-gently touching, softly soothing, delightfully awakening, enthusiastically illuminating and fervently healing.

As a grandparent of three grandsons, Freeman sees the need for help within the community. She volunteers for readings and events throughout the Lansing School District. She works on projects with the Michigan Million Women Movement that sprang out of the MWM (Million Women March) of 1997. She’s a member of several supporting organizations, such as Delores Thornton’s Marguerite Press, Disilgold Soul and Publishing and Sisterhood of The Written Word. She also sings with a 35 voice group, who continues to keep the Negro Spirituals alive-The Earl Nelson Singers-directed by Verna Holley.

An alumnus of Northwood University of Midland and former Financial Analyst for General Motors, Freeman continues to reside in Lansing, Michigan with her husband, Attorney Myron S. Freeman Sr. She is proud of her three adult children, one of whom has attained stardom as an actress on Broadway.

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Dee Freeman, Poet, Author, Speaker and Host! / 517 321-3122 / www.deepoette.com / deedkfreeman@yahoo.com

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AALBC.com's 25 Best Selling Books

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#1 - Justify My Thug by Wahida Clark
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#8 - Casting the First Stone by Kimberla Lawson Roby
#9 - The Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth by Zane

#10 - Covenant: A Thriller by Brandon Massey

#11 - Diary Of A Street Diva by Ashley and JaQuavis

#12 - Don't Ever Tell by Brandon Massey

#13 - For colored girls who have considered suicide by Ntozake Shange

#14 - For the Love of Money : A Novel by Omar Tyree

#15 - Homemade Loves by J. California Cooper

#16 - The Future Has a Past: Stories by J. California Cooper

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#19 - Stackin' Paper by Joy King

#20 - Children of the Street: An Inspector Darko Dawson Mystery by Kwei Quartey

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#22 – Thug Matrimony by Wahida Clark

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Non-fiction

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#3 - Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love by Zane
#4 - Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny by Hill Harper
#5 - Peace from Broken Pieces: How to Get Through What You're Going Through by Iyanla Vanzant
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#8 - The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors by Frances Cress Welsing
#9 - The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter Godwin Woodson

#10 - John Henrik Clarke and the Power of Africana History by Ahati N. N. Toure

#11 - Fail Up: 20 Lessons on Building Success from Failure by Tavis Smiley

#12 -The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

#13 - The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life by Kevin Powell

#14 - The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore

#15 - Why Men Fear Marriage: The Surprising Truth Behind Why So Many Men Can't Commit by RM Johnson

#16 - Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire by Carol Jenkins

#17 - Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority by Tom Burrell

#18 - A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle

#19 - John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism by Keith Gilyard

#20 - Alain L. Locke: The Biography of a Philosopher by Leonard Harris

#21 - Age Ain't Nothing but a Number: Black Women Explore Midlife by Carleen Brice

#22 - 2012 Guide to Literary Agents by Chuck Sambuchino
#23 - Chicken Soup for the Prisoner's Soul by Tom Lagana
#24 - 101 Things Every Boy/Young Man of Color Should Know by LaMarr Darnell Shields

#25 - Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class by Lisa B. Thompson

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Faces At The Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism

By Derrick Bell

In nine grim metaphorical sketches, Bell, the black former Harvard law professor who made headlines recently for his one-man protest against the school's hiring policies, hammers home his controversial theme that white racism is a permanent, indestructible component of our society. Bell's fantasies are often dire and apocalyptic: a new Atlantis rises from the ocean depths, sparking a mass emigration of blacks; white resistance to affirmative action softens following an explosion that kills Harvard's president and all of the school's black professors; intergalactic space invaders promise the U.S. President that they will clean up the environment and deliver tons of gold, but in exchange, the bartering aliens take all African Americans back to their planet. Other pieces deal with black-white romance, a taxi ride through Harlem and job discrimination. Civil rights lawyer Geneva Crenshaw, the heroine of Bell's And We Are Not Saved (1987), is back in some of these ominous allegories, which speak from the depths of anger and despair. Bell now teaches at New York University Law School.—Publishers Weekly / Derrick Bell Dies at 80

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The New Jim Crow

Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

By Michele Alexander

Contrary to the rosy picture of race embodied in Barack Obama's political success and Oprah Winfrey's financial success, legal scholar Alexander argues vigorously and persuasively that [w]e have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial segregation has been replaced by mass incarceration as a system of social control (More African Americans are under correctional control today... than were enslaved in 1850). Alexander reviews American racial history from the colonies to the Clinton administration, delineating its transformation into the war on drugs. She offers an acute analysis of the effect of this mass incarceration upon former inmates who will be discriminated against, legally, for the rest of their lives, denied employment, housing, education, and public benefits. Most provocatively, she reveals how both the move toward colorblindness and affirmative action may blur our vision of injustice: most Americans know and don't know the truth about mass incarceration—but her carefully researched, deeply engaging, and thoroughly readable book should change that.—Publishers Weekly

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Panther Baby

A Life of Rebellion and Reinvention

By Jamal Joseph

In the 1960s he exhorted students at Columbia University to burn their college to the ground. Today he’s chair of their School of the Arts film division. Jamal Joseph’s personal odyssey—from the streets of Harlem to Riker’s Island and Leavenworth to the halls of Columbia—is as gripping as it is inspiring. Eddie Joseph was a high school honor student, slated to graduate early and begin college. But this was the late 1960s in Bronx’s black ghetto, and fifteen-year-old Eddie was introduced to the tenets of the Black Panther Party, which was just gaining a national foothold. By sixteen, his devotion to the cause landed him in prison on the infamous Rikers Island—charged with conspiracy as one of the Panther 21 in one of the most emblematic criminal cases of the sixties. When exonerated, Eddie—now called Jamal—became the youngest spokesperson and leader of the Panthers’ New York chapter. He joined the “revolutionary underground,” later landing back in prison. Sentenced to more than twelve years in Leavenworth, he earned three degrees there and found a new calling. He is now chair of Columbia University’s School of the Arts film division—the very school he exhorted students to burn down during one of his most famous speeches as a Panther.

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The White Masters of the World

From The World and Africa, 1965

By W. E. B. Du Bois

W. E. B. Du Bois’ Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization (Fletcher)

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Ancient African Nations

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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan / The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll / Only a Pawn in Their Game

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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg

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update 7 April 2012