The speakers serve as the collective voice of Black Americans descended from enslaved Africans. They petition for redress against centuries of systemic oppression, unequal treatment, and violence. Rather than remaining passive, they actively demand equality and detail the plunder of their communities, the destruction of their cultural identity, and the institutional barriers erected against them. Their voices repurpose the historical language of the nation's founding to demand structural change.

Addressed simply as "he," this figure represents the dominant patriarchal systems and white men in power throughout United States history. This unnamed entity stands in for the institutional forces that perpetuate racial injustice, taking the historical place of a tyrannical king. The figure is responsible for plundering, ravaging, and destroying the lives of the speakers while ignoring their continuous petitions for redress.

Thomas Jefferson is a historical founding father, a landowner, and the architect of the original legal document declaring American independence. Despite his written assertions that all men are created equal, he maintained the institution of slavery. The poem erases parts of his well-reasoned prose to turn his own accusations of oppression back against him and the unequal political systems he helped establish.

King George III serves as the original oppressor addressed in the 1776 declaration. He represents the British colonial power that aggrieved the early American colonists. In the context of the poem, his historical role as a distant tyrant is redirected toward American systemic racism and the nation's own founding fathers.

The officers execute the will of the dominant patriarchal system. They represent the antagonistic relationship between officers of the justice system and people of color. They evoke contemporary instances of police brutality that spark social movements for systematic change.

The founding fathers are the group of men who signed the declaration to demand freedom from the British empire. They belonged to a privileged class and took enormous risks to establish a new nation. However, they omitted enslaved people from their legal definitions of equality and citizenship, establishing the exclusionary framework the poem critiques.