On Juneteenth

Written for Rural and Migrant Ministry’s Justice Celebration on June 20, 2021

On Juneteenth

Pieces of speeches stretch across my screen – 

each tab unfinished business

we learn as gospel truth.

Founding fathers perform magic tricks,

distract with dazzling ideals:

All men created equal

Free!

to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

We slumber in the American Dream,

missing the sleight of white hand

hiding Black humanity

in mathematical equation.

Three

Fifths

“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

Frederick Douglass asked

Forty-seven miles 

and one hundred and sixty-nine years away.

“The rich inheritance of justice

Liberty

Prosperity

and Independence

bequeathed by your fathers

is shared by you

Not by me.”

My fathers

Forefathers

bequeath me 

History as an endless march 

towards equality –

white savior complex:

Abraham Lincoln “freed the slaves”

And eight hundred and ninety-nine days later

General Gordon Granger

Rode into Galveston 

To liberate enslaved people

By telling them about it.

Harriet Tubman might have something 

to say about that.

Moses was the true magician.

Her math restorative, 

computed in the mind

to leave as little as possible behind.

Fourteen journeys.

At least sixty enslaved people

Struggling their way 

to freedom

Together.

Her words as elusive

as the unknown number

of Black enslaved people

who freed themselves

against all odds.

Risking everything.

What to me is Juneteenth?

Second Independence Day

Black Independence Day

Jubilee Day?

It’s the day I catch my forefathers

in their sleight of hand.

A promise 

Still unfulfilled.

Old math.

Proclaim liberation

while 2.3 million Black Americans 

remain shackled in jail.

National holiday 

commemorating a history

it’s illegal to teach

in five states.

And yet

It is also the day we celebrate

the full (and yet unfulfilled) acknowledgement

of the humanity 

and freedom of all Americans

take one step closer to 

the land that never has been yet

and remember the immeasurable strength

of the true liberators

of Black Americans.

Themselves.