Freedom FridayHow will you commemorate Juneteenth? Today is Juneteenth, and as a Black woman, my heart rejoices. I rejoice in the remembrance that despite centuries of bondage, my ancestors tasted the joy of freedom. I will rejoice, and I will rest, and I will remember. In this racial climate, where it has become acceptable to denigrate a former First Lady on the grounds of the so-called people’s house, honoring Juneteenth feels all the more urgent. My soul rejoices in the truth that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, and no one can stop its bend. I ask again, how will you commemorate Juneteenth? Author Jemar Tisby reminds us that non-Black people should take time to “commemorate the day. Do your own educational labor before you show up to the party. Reckon with the history that made emancipation necessary and ask yourself where you stand on the right side of justice today.” Others suggest supporting Black-owned businesses, reading Black authors, and investing in the Black content creators whose work you regularly consume. Perhaps it looks like committing to protect the vote in Black communities that remain under attack. How will you stand with Black people at this moment? Today I am sharing a poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a suffragist, writer, teacher, and abolitionist. Born free in Baltimore and orphaned at the age of three, she was raised by her aunt and uncle and came of age with a deep commitment to justice. Harper used her words and her voice as instruments of freedom, refusing to separate the fight for women’s rights from the realities faced by Black women. At a suffrage gathering featuring Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she offered a pointed reminder: “You white women speak here of rights… I speak of wrongs.” Her witness still calls us to hold together truth, justice, and courage in our public lives. May your Juneteenth be filled with both joy and reflection. –Rev. Moya Harris, Senior Director of Programs, Sojourners Bury Me In A Free Land Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911) Make me a grave where’er you will, In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill; Make it among earth’s humblest graves, But not in a land where men are slaves. I could not rest if around my grave I heard the steps of a trembling slave; His shadow above my silent tomb Would make it a place of fearful gloom. I could not rest if I heard the tread Of a coffle gang to the shambles led, And the mother’s shriek of wild despair Rise like a curse on the trembling air. I could not sleep if I saw the lash Drinking her blood at each fearful gash, And I saw her babes torn from her breast, Like trembling doves from their parent nest. I’d shudder and start if I heard the bay Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey, And I heard the captive plead in vain As they bound afresh his galling chain. If I saw young girls from their mother’s arms Bartered and sold for their youthful charms, My eye would flash with a mournful flame, My death-paled cheek grow red with shame. I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated might Can rob no man of his dearest right; My rest shall be calm in any grave Where none can call his brother a slave. I ask no monument, proud and high, To arrest the gaze of the passers-by; All that my yearning spirit craves, Is bury me not in a land of slaves. This poem is in the public domain.
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