Upon this day, in Nineteen-Eight,
She came forth to some small acclaim,
Within a people tinged with shame
But whose regard for tribe was very great —

No, she would not be second-class,
Nor bathe in some subservience
To customs made of little sense
Nor what to her was meaningless, or crass,

So burst she, in Depression years,
Upon a world unready; she, undimmed
By what was darkly thought, the headlines skimmed
And full of courage made from hope and fears

She traversed through the morass of an age
So thick with unseen barriers and grime,
That strength itself became a sort of crime
With punishment its sure and common wage —

But how? We only see by light of truth,
And maybe all that’s left is blood, and flour,
And vestiges of passion, killed by power
In stories small, invisible to youth.