Juneteenth

Today is Juneteenth. In my very small city, there are two Juneteenth public picnics being held, and in larger communities, the event is being commemorated with prayer breakfasts, festivals, concerts, picnics, and art shows.

In light of the Senate's recent apology for failing to pass an anti-lynching law, there is at least a little bit of public discussion about the abominations of slavery and all that followed in this country and others. As a rule, non-African Americans don't talk much about slavery except to say that it was "terrible" and "in the past." In Requiem for a Nun, Faulker said: "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

Slavery, in one form or another, is alive and well throughout the world, as are genocide and torture and imprisonment of the oppressed. And that's just the human creatures.

Here are some poems for Juneteenth