Juneteenth Reflection

This year Juneteenth hit different.  My first celebration since the pandemic shut everything down.  My first celebration after the beginning of the worldwide Black Lives Matter protests.  Here are some of my reflections.

Juneteenth is bittersweet for me

For it is both celebration and lament

This day, gave voice to the written words that granted freedom

Gave the last slaves hope for a new lot in life

On that day, freedom was theirs

They could come and go as they pleased

It is the days and years that follow that get me

For, they couldn’t have known that freedom did not mean equality

They couldn’t have seen Jim Crow coming around the corner

Or that their pain and trauma would not cease

Yes, I celebrate the hope and sacred sign of freedom

I enjoy the music

The dancing

The food

The fellowship

The creativity

And I lament the bondage that lingers in my mind

I despise the racism

The sexism

The glass ceilings

The microaggressions

The double consciousness

From the Pandemic and Black Live Matter

I have come to see myself as having a semblance of freedom

I am free to come and go as I please

Yet invisible chains sometimes still link me to master’s house

It is this mental slavery that I seek freedom from

In the days and years to come

I seek new tools hewn from my ancestor’s hands

Tools to create new possibilities and a new house

Juneteenth – A Bittersweet celebration and lament

Telling our story of fear and faith

Power and promise

Freedom in all its iteration!