For John Callahan
Those four black girls blown up
in that Alabama church
remind me of five hundred
middle passage blacks,
in a net, under water
in Charleston harbor
so redcoats wouldn't find them.
Can't find what you can't see
can you?
This poem, entitled “American History,” ends with a question, which calls attention back to the title.  History doesn’t end in question marks – but Harper is pointing out that American History has been whitewashed with this line. 
 The redcoats couldn’t find the slaves being drowned and the modern American also wouldn’t find such abhorrent acts in American History textbooks.
American History