Member Poem

Juneteenth hint: three hundred
and sixty six days
after eighteen sixty four.

Major General Gordon Granger
led the Union Soldiers to Galveston, Texas,
to announce the end of the Civil war
and the freedom of all enslaved people.

Jim Crow sat perched
over the event horizon
waiting in the wings,
which brought darkened
(non-sheltering) skies
not only for the hot pocket
of suddenly emancipated
persons of color,
who would subsequently experience
immense prejudice
upon their embarkation

as (no pun intended)
"masters" of their own selves
while attempting to eke out a living
dirt poor, yet resourceful
hunkering down on plantations,
which property eminent domain
of federal government,
(a political entity
characterized by union
of partially self-governing provinces,

states, or other regions),
whereby said body electric
codified, fortified, and indemnified
manifest destiny, a phrase
coined in 1845, the idea
that United States destined—
by God advocates believed—
to expand its dominion
and spread democracy and capitalism
across the entire North American continent.

Though institution of slavery
supposedly rendered null and void
at the stroke of a pen
(courtesy Abraham Lincoln)
well actual legislation
passed by Congress on January 31, 1865,
and ratified on December 6, 1865,
the 13th Amendment abolished slavery
in the United States.

Nevertheless merciless abuse
heaped upon the negro
despite their legal status
being Granted leeway
to persevere life, liberty
and pursuit of happiness.

Recognition as equal brethren
among collective soul of American
fraught with bitter aversion,
condemnation, and ejaculation
of physical and verbal violence
against people of color,
whose melanin enriched complexion
birthrights rendered hidebound
severely limited
inalienable rights as declared
in Declaration of Independence,

now still utter abhorrence
regarding treatment
of those proud enterprising people,
whose once storied
African past left in tatters
leaving sparse threads
woven together by diligent dogged research
nsync with twenty first century technology
to allow, enable and provide opportunity
to stitch together a more complete tapestry
and spiritual fusion with shackled ancestors.