Acknowledge Your Own History

You don't know who you are
Look back into your past, brother
Look back into your past, sister
You don't know who you are
Look back into your past, sister
Look back into your past, brother

My forefather was a king
He wore fat gold chains and fat ruby rings
Nobody believes this to be true
Maybe it's because my eyes ain't blue

You ain't gonna find it in your history book
Come here, young blood and take a look
You dig down deep inside this hard cover
Don't you know you was bought, brother?

All you read about is slavery
Never about the black man's bravery
You look at the pictures and all they show is
African people with bones in their noses
That ain't true, that's a lie
You didn't get that from my lemon pie

Yeah, I cut class, I got a D
'Cause history meant nothing to me
Except a definite nap that's why I always sat in the back
I'd talk to girls or write a rhyme 'cause I didn't know
All times are black man's times

When I was young my mama told me stories
Of black peoples' fight to bring us glory
I used to think these were stories to put me to sleep
But now I know mama's talk wasn't cheap
Now I know Afrika's for Afrikaans
And history's the blood of every woman and man

Now I begin another search, the incredibly involved
The incredibly difficult and incredibly frustrating search
Now I begin another search, the incredibly involved
The incredibly difficult and incredibly frustrating search
Trying to pull together the history of the people

Page one, page two, page three
And still no signs of me
Yeah, so I looked into the table of contents
They wrote a little thing about us in the projects

The only history we make is if we kill somebody
Rape somebody but other than that we're nobody
Speaking like a brother living in the jungle
I know I was here first but I remain humble

Now it's time to rekindle the fire
A tribe of young brothers with the eye of the tiger
Acknowledge your own, we have a home
Put on this earth to live and roam

Christopher chose to explore
Discovered America, yeah, sure
He thought the planet was square
Traveled many places but we already had been there

We left tracks, backtrack back
First civilization, you know where that was found at
Looking for the true black days of glory
But you read in history, that's his story

The red's for the blood and the black's for the man
The green is the color that stands for the land
The red's for the blood and the black's for the man
The green is the color that stands for the land

The red's for the blood and the black's for the man
The green is the color that stands for the land
The red's for the blood and the black's for the man
The green is the color that stands for the land