Title: We Didn't Just Gain It By: MikeWhite Cloudwalker

Title: “We Didn’t Just Gain It”

Nah…

We ain’t just wake up one day and get the right to vote…

That right got blood on it…

Pain on it…

Names we’ll never even know…

Back in the days we were chained, no voice, no choice

Couldn’t speak, couldn’t vote, couldn’t make no noise

Human beings turned property, stripped identity

No rights in the system, no humanity

Hands in the dirt but the land wasn’t ours

Built up a nation but denied all the power

Every hour was survival, every breath was a fight

Couldn’t even dream about a ballot or a right

War ended… chains cracked, a little light shown

Reconstruction era, we were finally known

15th said we could vote—yeah, that was law

Black men in office, yeah they saw what we saw

For a moment, progress… felt like we arrived

But hate was alive, and it didn’t subside

They saw us rising, couldn’t let it stand

So they plotted in the shadows just to take it back again

We didn’t just gain it, nah, we paid the price

With our lives, with our blood, with the ultimate sacrifice

From the pain to the power, from the dark to the light

Now we are standing in the future—don’t forget that fight

Jim Crow laws came, dressed clean but foul

Poll tax on your head, “pay up” just to count

Literacy tests—designed for you to fail

The sa folks couldn’t read, but they controlling the scale

Grandfather clause—yeah, that was the trick

“If your granddaddy ain’t vote, you ain’t voting”—that’s it

Intimidation at the polls, violence in the streets

Try to cast a vote, you might not make it home to eat

Systematic barriers—let me break that down

Those rules are built quite just to hold you down

Not always chains, sometimes paper and pen

But the goal is still the same—keep power from your hands

But we resisted… yeah, we stood tall

Marching through the hate, even when we fall

Dogs, hoses, batons, still we walked

Every step forward was a freedom talk

Persistence means you push when they say “no more”

You come back again, knocking at the door

Even when they block it, even when it’s pain

You rise up stronger, again and again

Civil Rights movement—voices got loud

From the streets to the law, we shook the whole ground

1965, yeah the law got right

Voting Rights Act—now we legally fight

We didn’t just gain it, nah, we paid the price

With our lives, with our blood, with the ultimate sacrifice

From the pain to the power, from the dark to the light

Now we are standing in the future—don’t forget that fight

– Present / Call to Action]

Now listen… this part right here is clear

We are not going backwards, we have come too far here

From no rights… to a voice that’s loud

Don’t sit on the couch while they are shaping your town

Get up, go vote—that’s power in your hand

For the woman, the man, every generation stands

Equality means every voice got weight

No backdoor deals tryna manipulate US