A Letter to Our Foremothers on the Occasion of Juneteenth

To our foremothers whose full stories are unknown and whose suffering is unacknowledged in a nation hellbent on denying the depravity of the middle passage, chattel slavery, systematic rape, babies torn from breasts, lynchings, Jim Crow, drug epidemics, mass incarceration, and state-sanctioned violence.

You endured in spite of it all only to tuck the pain away and press on, even while diseases now known to be exacerbated by stress ravaged your bodies and took you long before your time. Even as you granted your children the “grace of silence” so they would not truly know just how steep the climb is when there are more than headwinds pushing against you. You made that climb and cleared the path, removing as much of the debris created by racial terrorism, diminished personhood, and collective trauma as you possibly could.

I write today so that you would know your efforts were not in vain. We are here. We are climbing higher and as you warned, we must work twice as hard to get half as far, but still, we climb. And we rise. Your daughters’ portraits grace our walls: Odessa, Annie Pearl, Callie Mae, and Juanita. We say their names and hold you in reverence knowing that in their faces we look upon your eyes, and noses, and mouths. Your bright smiles and sharp wits shine through the glass that holds their images.

We thank them and you for the love and determination that made it possible for us to walk this earth on this day. That you dared live, partner, birth babies, and build lives in a nation that offered you only subjugation, separation, and death is miraculous. We bathe in the glory of the miracle of you and dare to live, partner, birth babies, and build lives because you showed us that we could.

We’ve learned about grief in this place we call home and know with certainty that your strength upholds us when we feel poised to collapse under the weight of loss. Your ability to inhabit us in our darkest hour is beyond our understanding but we are awakening to your presence and laying claim to the inheritances you placed within us.

We are creating healing spaces and inviting our sisters and brothers to come and sit for a while and share the burdens and the pleasures of our hearts. We are teaching, speaking, marching, and making demands for liberation. We are creating art, so that our gifts can be both witnessed and received. We are reclaiming the soil of the earth in order to sow, cultivate, and harvest. We see one another in the ways you saw one another, knowing that it is only together that we will survive. And it is together where we will find joy and unconditional love.

Thank you for the love you placed in us. It has been sustained across generations and thousands upon thousands of miles and is awakened whenever someone calls out for “Momma.” We are here and we answer with you, with your strength in our bones and your fierceness in our hearts, determined to keep our people alive that one day we might live free.

I offer these words with all of my gratitude and love,

Habeebah, Daughter of Valerie

Image is a commissioned artwork by Frequency of Love by Zoë and features Habeebah’s maternal grandmother, Juanita Benton.