Impeach Earl Warren

By John I. Blair

In 1960s Wichita to cross
The sprawling switchyards
South of Union Station
We rode a viaduct,
A cresting concrete span
That lofted all six lanes
High in the air.

Halfway along the bridge
Back in those Civil Rights,
Cold War, Extend the Vote,
John Birch Society days
A billboard blared
“Impeach Earl Warren.”

So immune to politics
I scarcely was aware
Just who Earl Warren was,
I’d mostly met the word “impeach”
In books and drowsy classrooms.

So that billboard
Piqued my curiosity.

I found old Earl,
The “Superchief”
As colleagues called him,
Had helped black children
Enter white kids’ schools
And voters vote on equal terms.

He’d sworn in Presidents
And been sworn at by them,
Won prisoners Miranda rights
And laid the blame on Oswald
For Kennedy’s assassination.

All these, or any, so it seemed,
Were ample grounds to many
For Earl’s impeachment.

In my opinion this land needs
More names
Upon more billboards of this sort,
More people like old Earl
With the guts to earn such wrath.
©2007 John I. Blair