I am worth

When the first rays of the start of day touch the rocky coast of the Atlantic seaboard, I will be there like a whisper in the long lines of the unemployed. When the heat of the sun in the middle of day drops like a blanket of splinters over broad midlands, old Indian lands rich with wheat and corn, I will be there like a murmur in the ranks of the poor. When the last of the sun at the end of day bids farewell to the long Pacific shore, setting under clouds over turgid waters, I will be there as a voice in the lines of the unemployed. Look at me: I am dignity. I am people. What I seek is work and not poverty. What I want is peace and not war. Give me opportunity and equality, not rhetorical terms. Offer to me, with a friendly hand, the action of honesty, not the concessions of squalor. I am not statistics. I am not charts. Nor am I negligible. Look at me! I am dignity. I am humanity. I am worth.