Deanna Mascle: Writing Evangelist

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Emancipation

What have you planted in this world that will continue to grow after you are gone?

This week the Just Write Virtual Writing Group wrote about emancipation in honor of Juneteenth. We drew inspiration from two podcasts and four poems.

Our contemplation began with historian Clint Smith on Democracy Now. His words are always powerful and thought-provoking but three quotes in particular resonated:

  • Every day, Black children walk into buildings named after people who never wanted them to be there. Every time I would return home, I would drive on streets named for those who would have wanted me in chains.
  • What name is there for this sort of violence? What do you call it when the road you walk on is named for those who imagined you under a noose? What do you call it when the roof over your head is named after people who would have wanted the bricks to crush you?
  • a lot of enslaved people didn’t know that the Emancipation Proclamation had happened. And some didn’t even know that General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox two months prior. And so, part of what this is doing is making clear to the 250,000 enslaved people in Texas that they had actually been granted freedom two-and-a-half years prior and that the war that this was all fought over had ended two months before.

The four poems we chose to explore were among those recommended by former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith shared with NPR:

I have long loved the voices of Smith, Hughes, and Clifton. Their simple powerful words reverberate through my thoughts, but every one writing with us this week was powerfully impacted by Gay’s poem. The celebration of a human life and the impact of that life on all of us was tremendous. Whether or not you choose to write about America’s continued journey to emancipation or one of the images offered by these poems, I hope that you continue to write your story.

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