A Letter to Beloved Ancestor Mother Harriet Tubman

Dear Beloved Ancestor Mother Tubman,

Today April 20, 2021 a guilty verdict was announced in the murder of Mr. George Floyd. The world watched for nearly ten minutes as his life was taken at the hands of one who can only be identified as a monster and demon. The symbol of a systemic racist society. The fruit born of this diseased evil.

There is a profound significance between April 20, 2021, the verdict and April 20, 1853, the first day of your Underground Railroad. The date you lead over three hundred of our people out of slavery. I believe Mr. Floyd’s spirit has finally been set free.

Armed with courage, an unrelenting determination and purpose, all passengers forewarned of the consequences if attempting to turn back. You spoke of the death and unimaginable cruelty that would meet them on their return, they knew and never turned back! There was the smell and taste of freedom in the air. Their hopes and dreams wrapped in liberation.

You said, you would have lead more out of slavery, if only they had known they were slaves. Mother Tubman, it was their fear, brokenness and images
of witnessed savagery fueling their fear. Brutal images of a known cruelty
and death turning them away from the sweet call of a remembered freedom.

Mother Tubman, if we were not powerful, brilliant, beautiful, strong, creative and the mothers and fathers of civilization they would not see us as a threat!
They would not continue to steal our history and herstory and appropriate our culture; claiming it as their own. They would not have to market and convince themselves they are superior. The world looks at our culture sucking the very blood from our marrow. Like the beginning we give life to the world still. We are the reminder of the savagery of their ancestors and the shame and ugliness of a shared DNA.

We will be free! It is our hunger for freedom and liberation propelling us forward fearless. We do not cower in the face of weak and pathetic cowards. All cowards and criminals do not wear uniforms and sheets. They are rooted in systemic racism, injustice, smiles and micro and macro aggression and
those who remain silent in the face of our death. We remain fighting on many fronts! It is your blood and sacrifices and those of our ancestors before us propelling us forward to justice and liberation. We are not afraid and remain resilient. We are still here, becoming stronger with every murder and brutal assault! Mother Tubman we are still and will never stop fighting!

©Lorraine Currelley 2021.