Juneteenth Freewrite
I celebrate Juneteenth all month like I know my ancestors did. Grinning from ear with new hopes and dreams. Claiming love ones sold away. And crying at impossible, come true. A miracle for sure. I laugh loud, and cook whatever I have just like they did and remember who I iz. What this country did. Made it illegal to be me, made it illegal to read, made it illegal to dream. Then I move like I can do anything… cause I can. Cause of them. 500 years. My mama nem, saw the end of post slave laws. My great grandmamas and grandmamas, and my mama fought. 1965. 1965. 1965. 1965. The generation that fought for civil rights is still alive.
Then we thought we had a real victory. We thought it was a dream, to be among folks who didn’t see our humanity. Abandoning how we survived, how we thrived. America killed King but didn’t admit it til 1999. Assassinated Black Panthers sleeping in their beds. President Hoover laughed, said them niggas didn’t learn from Malcolm X. Then America hid our glory, hid our story of how we made it over. We like the enslaved, not knowing they was free, never even heard of Juneteenth. Then it was Michael Brown gunned down and left uncovered in the street like discarded strange fruit. And Trayvon Martin stalked and running for his life, for daring to walk hooded in the rain at night… Neighbors heard him cry out for his mama, but they still put him on trial for his own murder. This is why Black Lives Matter. Let us morn fathers resigned to surviving. Cornered broken and fighting because only daughters were protected. Let’s this end the resent between the sexes. And our need to be like our oppressor. Juneteenth is a love letter calling us, calling us back together, to respect our elders, honor our women and take back your manhood by not seeing your mother and sisters as sex objects bought and soul to the highest bidder. Stop saying she’s a gold digger because she has standards and dreams bigger… beyond struggle. Love is not suffering. Love is not submission. Love is freedom. Love is believing we have more opportunities to be us. Whatever us be.
Happy Juneteenth
