The key lines and uplifting sentiments chosen for this \u201cerasure poem\u201d sometimes show their age, but they still make inspiring reading. The text floats on Lewis\u2019 evocative images of opening doorways and marching footsteps, of small figures standing on a mountaintop or rising through clouds, and of hands shaping a heart or holding a tool. \u201cI want to suggest things that should be in your life\u2019s blueprint,\u201d King said. He went on to speak of believing in being Black, beautiful, and good; of staying in school; of rising up like Marian Anderson and Muhammad Ali; of choosing nonviolence over hate (\u201cOur slogan must not be \u2018Burn, baby, burn\u2019\u201d); and of transforming injustice into justice. Most of all, he urged, \u201cDON\u2019T SET DOWN \/ ON THE STEPS \/ \u2019CAUSE IT\u2019S \/ HARD. \/ KEEP MOVING.\u201d Duncan explains how readers can watch a video of the original talk and provides instructions for making an erasure poem; she closes with a quick summary of the Civil Rights Movement\u2019s hard-won triumphs. It\u2019s uncomfortable to consider how much of that last will be news to today\u2019s middle schoolers.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The key lines and uplifting sentiments chosen for this \u201cerasure poem\u201d sometimes show their age, but they still make inspiring reading. The text floats on Lewis\u2019 evocative images of opening doorways and marching footsteps, of small figures standing on a mountaintop or rising through clouds, and of hands shaping a heart or holding a tool. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5331"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}