Juneteenth Poetry Contest Winners Ashland Residents for Equity and Action held a poetry contest around the holiday Juneteenth. The topic was: What does Juneteenth mean to you?
Juneteenth
By Nathanael.
Juneteenth to me means more than I can express with words It is a celebration of freedom from those who wanted us leashed like dogs. From those who said those of color must be chained must be contained. It is a way of celebration for those who were forced to work day after day so on this Juneteenth is a day when the enslaved jumped for joy for freedom who cried for their freedom and toiled after their freedom. So they no longer have to suffer slavery but finally found liberty with our Nation america whose history has sanitized by those who feel as if the suffering of the slaves the horrendous form of torture known as slavery shouldn’t be shared but instead hide it and not try to make amends to the african people like me. For those children who had to cry for days and their freedom strayed from them and stripped from the and were tortured by their masters. and were treated as mere animals but Juneteenth is a day where our culture is represented not covered up and told by those who in the past enslaved us but told by the people it came from. It is a time when black excellence is to be shared. And to remember those who suffered day after day.
This is what Juneteenth means to me.
Juneteenth
By Phoebe Fellenbaum
Mrs. Balukonis - Grade 4.
Running, working, hot hot sun
Not being a part of anyone
All the horses riding up
Someone gets off and speaks up
He said we were no longer owned by somebody mean
We were our own - finally free
Packing, packing right on out,
Fleeing free round about.
After that it was walking and walking night and day
Finding hope in every way.
Feeling worse than before
But knowing it would last forever more.
Now today remembering that joyful day
We play and play out in the sun
that same sun black ancestors worked in
That same sun they packed in
On that happy, sad and mad day
Remembering a very hopeful day.
Juneteenth
By Charlotte Rosemary Dowd.
Dark and cloudy, The month after may. Scratches on hands from working all day. Picking cotton being abused. So so tired from being used. Like rocks that were kicked and nobody cared. When standing for auctioning always scared when they stared and stared. Being sold to ones with hearts hard and cold. Some may have been young but work made them feel old. Until the 19th day of the month after May. All went upside down. It was sunny and each other’s smiles they saw, happy tears everywhere due to the new law. Slaves were no longer forced to clean. In Texas slaves were finally free, and that’s why we celebrate the day Juneteenth.
