Alice Walker's Poem About Jesse Williams' BET Awards Speech

Many were inspired by Jesse Williams‘ impassioned speech at last week’s BET Awards, and one of them is the critically acclaimed poet and novelist Alice Walker.

The Pulitzer Prize winner (for her classic novel The Color Purple) has written a poem honoring the actor for his incredible speech which he delivered after winning the BET Humanitarian Award for his social activism in the Black Lives Matter movement, including marching with protestors in Ferguson, Missouri and executive producing the documentary, Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement, which chronicled the birth of the social justice movement.

Walker wrote in her poem, which she named, Here It Is:

Here it is

the beauty that scares you

-so you believe-

to death.

For he is certainly gorgeous

and he is certainly where whiteness

to your disbelief

has not wandered off

to die.

No.  It is there, tawny skin, gray eyes,

a Malcolm-esque  jaw.  His loyal parents

may Goddess bless them

sitting proud and happy and no doubt

amazed

at what they have done.

For he is black too.  And obviously

with a soul

made of everything.

Try to think bigger than you ever have

or had courage enough to do:

that blackness is not where whiteness

wanders off to die: but that it is

like the dark matter

between stars and galaxies in

the Universe

that ultimately

holds it all

together.

Walker beautifully captures what so many of us have been thinking since Williams’ proudly delivered his speech.

Much of Williams’ speech focused on the unsung heroes of the Black Lives Matter movement, and Black women like Walker, who Williams believes are heroes in their own right.

SOURCE:  AliceWalkersGarden | PHOTO: Getty

Read Alice Walker’s Incredible Poem About Jesse Williams  was originally published on globalgrind.com