We might enter this world alone, but we don’t live in it, and certainly can’t love in it, on an island.
To get to your island,
you may have to walk through my forest or cross her river or climb his hill.
So keeping my forest fire-free, and her river waters clean, and his hill easy to navigate helps you safely reach your island – and enjoy the journey there all the more. 🤷🏽♀️
We are connected, and we must remember that.
-Stacy Hawkins Adams
I learned of Juneteenth when I was 21, during a summer internship in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A young black couple that befriended me took me to my first-ever Juneteenth celebration and opened my eyes to why it was significant.
I wondered then why I’d never heard of it, and it’s a reminder today of the truth that many of us “don’t know what we don’t know.”
Today is an excellent day to spend some extra time seeking information through Google or your favorite search engine; to buy some ebooks, audiobooks or print books that detail the rich history of African American dreamers and doers; to watch some of the documentaries that add context and revelation to the pandemic that is known as racial injustice, such as 13th or the classic Eyes on the Prize or others you discover through your own research.
Juneteenth is “a thing” because it took forever for freed slaves in part of these United States to learn that they’d been free for a while, yet were still treated and viewed as someone’s property.
Today, let’s loose shackles of every kind by pushing ourselves – whoever we are and whatever we look like – to learn something new, do something different, and become better and wiser comrades on this journey called life.
Life Untapped with Stacy Hawkins Adams 