A review of the year under the Trump administration is to return to the poem of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, to the several days of Kwanzaa and other literary and festive occasions that have nothing at all to do with Trump.
We conclude the old year and welcome the new one with the hope and promise that the Johnson brothers endowed us with in “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
The song reminds us to keep the faith the dark past has taught us, the hope that the present has brought us.
Experiencing the pain and hurt of the Trump days is like coming over a way that with tears has been watered, like treading the path through the blood of the slaughtered.
He has bestowed us with nothing but misery and disgust; he has been a stony road and much more bitter than the chastening rod.
Days under his warp and woof have been like weary years that have left us with buckets of silent tears.
But his meanness cannot force us to stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee; lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world we forget Thee.
All of the trampling we have endured from Trump will not make us untrue to our God, untrue to our native land because he is but a moment’s madness and we take our hope inspiration from Maya who invoked us to Rise!
And as we rise our voices rise too, and we will forever sing a song harmonizing that to Make America Great Again—Trump Must Go!