I can't capture the magnitude of this moment simply through the resonance in my voice.

So, I will let the ancestors speak through me and time will be our medium of choice.  

From the moments when the drum barely made a sound

To when the first people crawled out of the ground.  

From the source to the sun, across space and time into the instrument. 

Am message woven into generations of resilience.

Because  creating the Blues too bravery and brilliance 

The ability to offer healing when you're in need of healing.

A collection of timeliness held together by shared trauma. How did we survive.? Why do we still exist.

Built the colonizers an empire that's exceeding all expectations.

We lived up to the myth, who we are, who we were. 

400 years can seem like a blur or more than enough time to colonize land, bodies, mind.

Dragging a burden that looks like it's too heavy for me.

Chip on my shoulder because of how the courts treat me.

They use me to maintain systems of white supremacy. 

This Black body has value.

The stock market started with brothers like me. 

The reason  why I get so emotional on Juneteenth is because when I was in school it wasn't taught to me. 

Didn't remember exactly how my people got free. 

And neither did any of my classmates, 

They saw a slave when they looked at me.

That missing puzzle piece 

In my understanding of American History

Left a hole in me, and I trying to fill it with Juneteenth. 

Enslaving people has become illegal according to the law.

Permission to disregard God's word, loopholes to sin is American law. 

It can't process right and wrong.

I've rarely seen white people celebrate Juneteenth.

Visibly missing when we gather and celebrate Black History.  

Dr Martin Luther King, Jr has to compete with Robert E Lee for a holiday in Alabama and Mississippi.

That's like apples and oranges to me.

Expected to accept my place in the caste system that state I have the least amount of human worth.

Being poor in America is bad. Being Black is much worse.

Police, with their weird fetishes,deliberately seek you out.

I'm sure they don't understand what Juneteenth is about.  

America's original sin, the catalyst was human trafficking and genocide.

Turn us loose with no rights, not even the decency to formal apologize. 

Happy JUNETEENTH 
Salute to your will to survive
Artis Burney 2024
Former Green Party candidate for Senate in District 15, Jackson County, MS