I was walking alone in the woods one day,
Whites grabbed me and took me away.

They took us by ship on a large blue sea,
There was no way now I could ever be free.

My ankles and wrists, they tightly were bound,
Now I knew I would never be found.

In the ship I lie day after day,
Feeling my body rock and sway.

I was placed on a shelf so very small,
So many shelves just on one wall.

When we arrived in an unknown land,
We were auctioned off to be somebody's hand.

Why do they treat us as a different kind,
Because of our color we cannot be mankind?

written April 1996 by Jenny
during an eighth-grade study of Roots

View Alex Haley's family tree , also created by Jenny