American Smooth

Howard Erker, Bobby Seale Checks Food Bags, March 31, 1972. Oakland Museum of California.

Black Community Survival Conference Rally at Greenman Field, March 28-31, 1972. KPIX Eyewitness News.

“To serve the people”, Philly Partisan, 2017.


We were dancing—it must have
been a foxtrot or a waltz,

something romantic but
requiring restraint,
rise and fall, precise
execution as we moved

American Smooth, Rita Dove