SOURCE: Splawn, P. Jane. “New World Consciousness in the Poetry of Ntozake Shange and June Jordan: Two African-American Women's Response to Expansionism in the Third World.” CLA Journal XXXIX, no. 4 (June, 1996) 417-31.

In the following essay, Splawn extols Jordan's and Ntozake Shange's call for a New World consciousness.

And who will join in this standing up and the ones who stood without sweet company will sing and sing back into the mountains and if necessary even under the sea 

we are the ones we have been waiting for. 

—June Jordan, “Poem for South African Women”

of course he's lumumba see only the eyes/bob marley wail in the night ralph featherstone burning temples as pages of books become ashen and smolder by his ankles walter rodney's blood fresh soakin the streets/leon damas spoke poems with his face/cesaire cursed our enemies/making welcome our true voice. 

—Ntozake...