tour bus stopped at Assin Manso,
where kidnapped Africans,
after being force-marched
to the coast,
received
their "last bath" before being
chained in dungeons
at Cape Coast
at Elmina Castles:
barefoot,
we walked the same path
those ancestors were forced
to walk
to that same river
feeling ancestral vibrations in the air/
coming up through
sacred African
earth.
we
come
from Africans
who refused to be broken;
strongest of the strong Africans
who defied
death.
we return to remember
and to reclaim
memories
the act of surviving required
so many of us
to forget.
1619-2019
from GUERRILLA DREAD: Poetry for Hearts and Minds
©2019
