Click here to listen to Blackman Preach read this poem.

The preceeding poem is included in Blackman Preach's self published chapbook titled, "The State of the Ghetto Address."

Click here to listen to Blackman Preach read this poem.

CONGRATULATION London Ladd! Please support a friend of Blackman Preach, London Ladd, who is the illustrator of my album cover Bumpy Tymes, London Ladd is an illustrator from Syracuse, New York and has partnered with veteran author Christine King Farris for his debut children’s book March On! The Day My Brother Martin Changed The World which will be released by Scholastic Inc in 2008. London is a 2006 graduate of Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration. His work has been showcased in the Syracuse Everson Museum of Arts’s 2006 Everson Biennial: Beauty is in the Eye of the Artist, and public kiosk in downtown Syracuse for the Syracuse Poster Project. He has completed a mural for the Syracuse Cultural Resource Council depicting Reverand Jermaine Loguen, an abolitionist, and his family the Underground Railroad.

The story chronicles the 24 hours leading up to the historical "I Have a Dream" speech at the 1963 march on Washington through the eyes of his sister Christine Farris King. It will be on sale in August coinciding with the 45th anniversary of the speech.

BlackCommentator.com Spoken Word Columnist, Poet Blackman Preach (Cedric T. Bolton), is a poet (spoken word artist) and producer, born in Pascagoula, Mississippi and raised in Paterson, New Jersey. Cedric received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Western Washington University and currently resides, with his wife, in Syracuse, New York.  He is the Founder of Poetic Black Fusion, a writers' workshop that provides access and opportunities to poets of African Ancestry living in Central New York.  He is also the co-founder of Voices Merging, a student-run poetry organization (spoken word) at the University of Minnesota that provides a social outlet for undergraduate students to develop as writers, network and express themselves on stage. He has been writing poetry for 14 years and is published in the Ethnic Student Center's Newsletter at Western Washington University, The Spokesman Recorder, and St. Cloud Times. Click here to contact Blackman Preach.