Donald marshall jr obituary poems
In , year-old Marshall Jr., son of a grand chief of the Mi'kmaq Nation, was wrongfully convicted of murder and spent 11 years in prison.!
Mary Is appealing his November manslaughter conviction in the stabbing death of Sandy Seale.
Honouring the life and continuing the work of Donald Marshall Jr.
“DMJ” by Rebecca Thomas
Reprinted with permission
Intentions.
Whether they pave to road to hell,
Spell out your actions,
Are ignored instead of enacted,
Refracted realities, legal dualities,
Your intentions say a lot about you.
Like how treaties were signed, with no intended follow-through.
I wouldn’t quite say he was a hero only because of his reluctance to do so.
Perhaps a martyr.
A little rough around the edges,
With more than one or two ways he had transgressed.
He was but a man.
A Mi’kmaq.
Whose sacrifice can only be summed up by words that I don’t possess.
A man that the state, history, and colonialism had made powerless.
Rose up, lifted by others, to confront those who would oppress.
He was stripped of his youth by a system.
That until he was seven, didn’t recognize him as a citizen.
Because here’s the thing.
When you know that your land, life and treaty were