Day 95: Making Space

Right now, as a cis-gendered, white female I am ready to shout from my rooftop that #blacklivesmatter. And, I will. But the most important thing I see myself as being able to do is use my privilege to make space for the voices who have not been heard simply based on skin color. So in lieu of a long post from me today, here are some words by African-American abolitionist Frances Harper that I think we may all benefit from:

"Bury Me in a Free Land"

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.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper 1825-1911

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Therefore, let us not rest until this issue is all we are laying to rest in a grave-make it made with the love and learning and the thirst for equality in this parched nation.

Prepare, don't panic.

-Allison