sweet and dry and simple
and that hated sunday morning fussed over feeling
the songs
singing out from their mothers toughness
would never threaten the lord's retribution
any more.
Now she was safe
acceptable
that big Mahalia
Chicago turned all out
to show her that they cared
but her eyes were closed
And although Mahalia loved our music
nobody sang her favorite song
and while we talked about
what a hard life she had known
and wasn't it too bad Sister Mahalia
Music  is an art. Black art is part of a Black Art Movement, “affiliated group of politically motivated activist poets, painters, musicians, dramatists, and other artists working in American urban centers, beginning roughly in 1965 and losing momentum by the mid-1970s.” Mahalia did what she loved for the greatness and advancement of her people but wasn’t shown the same gratitude back towards her. When the same gratitude was exemplified, a catastrophic event occurred. If she received the same recognition that she had gotten the day of her eulogy some time before, then mishaps like the six children burning in a day care center, right across the other side of town, wouldn’t had never occurred.
The Day They Eulogized Mahalia