Each year, I show the mini-series Roots to my 8th grade classes. Yesterday, we finished Episode #2, which concludes with a very powerful scene, where the African-born slave, Kunta Kinte is brutally beaten until he renounces his African name and acknowledges his slave name, Toby.

At the end of the day yesterday, one of my students walked into my room and extremely casually dropped this poem on my desk.