Checkmate
I drove down familiar streets to frequent a store for some things I needed.
Along my path, I noticed crowds of people lifting signs that read:
“No Kings,” “Yasssss Queens,” “No Ice in the Streets,” and more.
It stirred something in me.
A memory. A fire.
I reflected on my own experiences organizing—on the strength it takes to raise your voice for your beliefs and values.
I felt inspired by these actions and grateful for the wave of nostalgia that followed.
Here is my response to what’s happening in society, in my own way:
Checkmate
By Naima Yetunde Hammonds
No Kings—
no thrones forged from oil and blood,
no crowns passed down through broken ballots
or whispered in boardrooms thick with smoke.
We are not your subjects.
We bend for no gold-dripped hands
that hoard light
while we ration shadow.
No Kings—
in courtrooms where justice wears a blindfold
but still peeks through
when the verdict leans white.
No Kings in armor of badges,
wielding steel and fear
on streets stained with memory.
We chant in the ruins
where empires once dined
on our silence.
Now, we speak.
Now, we build fire from our breath.
No Kings—
not in mansions while children starve,
not in borders drawn by greed,
not in systems that crush the spirit
then sell healing for profit.
We are the many,
uncloaked, unbought,
rising like roots
cracking the stone
beneath every empire.
So take your scepters,
your missiles, your myths—
we are no longer yours to rule.
Checkmate.
No Kings.
Only people
with fists of sun,
marching, mourning,
singing
the world new.
