Martin Espada's Poem "Sleeping on the Bus"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the speaker in Martin Espada's poem "Sleeping on the Bus" is paying tribute to the forefathers of the human rights movement by showing the many hardships they had to overcome. The author points out that the main theme of the poem is to show how easily the people of today forget the sacrifices that were made to create the freedoms now enjoyed and how there is still work to be done. The paper relates that the repeating rhetorical question "how we" emphasizes the speaker's goal of making the reader strongly remember the tough long road of desegregation. The paper analyzes each stanza of the poem.

From the Paper:

"The poem explicates how a decade before the demonstrations in Alabama, few held true to their convictions out of fear of the pure power that the conservative majority had over the police and government "no witness spoke to cameras." When a "brown skinned man in Army uniform" made the smallest snicker in disbelief regarding the "custom of the backseat" he was dragged from the bus by the police. Without due process, the "brown skinned" man was put in jail for a week, while the "magistrate" went right back to bed feeling no remorse and sleeping soundly."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Espada, Martin. "Sleeping on the Bus". Literature and its Writers. Eds. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin's. 2007 (998-999).

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