Happy & Healthy Sunday to You!
I hope today’s message finds you and your loved ones healthy and safe on this spring day!
The purpose of this particular newsletter is to share a token of love and emancipation with you!
I am excited to share with you that my 4th book of poetry, “Emancipation Papers: A Truthtelling Journey Towards Awakening, Healing and Transformation” will be published next month (April is National Poetry Month)!
I recently had the opportunity to share one of the artifacts that will be a part of the gift box at an event for Womxn of Color (“Who Run the Campus?”) at the University of San Diego. The item I shared is what I call a “Receipt of Emancipation” and it appears as a scroll in the box. I explained to the group of leaders, that the overarching theme of this project looks at both personal and communal freedom, liberation, justice and love.
In developing the project, one of the historical documents that I used as an inspiration piece was (of course) the Emancipation Proclamation authored by President Abraham Lincoln. As a child being taught U.S. History in primary school, I learned how important this document was for “kids like me” and that Mr. Lincoln was the greatest President for his act of bravery.
As I often quip, “You know History…it’s complicated.”
It wasn’t until college that I learned the other side of the story about Mr. Lincoln. Him agonizing about whether freeing those Black bodied human beings, forced into the institution of slavery, was necessary in order to conserve the Union. It has been said that if the President could have reached his goals without freedom being on the table, he would have not made emancipation a priority.
As I read The Proclamation again after decades of not setting my eyes on it, I began to feel disheartened by the resistance that went into its creation. As an artist, I live by the belief that the energy in which you create anything is transferred into that piece (that is why the superstition of not eating food of a sad cook is a thing in my family. Keep your sad potato salad at home, please!).
While continuing to read The Proclamation, a different energy came over me…a more empowered energy. At that moment, a thought came to me that changed my perspective: What if Harriet Tubman was the author of the Emancipation Proclamation? What if her energy, knowledge and sense of urgency about the cost of freedom was poured into this document?!?
At that moment, I tapped into my Mother Ancestors (Mothers Maya, Harriet, and Toni) and got to writing.
So on this day as we prepare for the final confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black Woman Supreme Court Judge, I offer this gift to you, to all of us. There will be an opportunity to have the scroll with your name mailed to you when the book comes out. In the meantime, please accept this Receipt of Emancipation on behalf of your family and the communities you represent:
RECEIPT OF EMANCIPATION
WHEREAS This Receipt of Emancipation is issued to [Add Your Name]. This Receipt is to decree and declare to all who read and hear its contents that the person named holds the full rights, responsibilities, and righteousness of the life they and they alone possess. Any bondage, whether physical, spiritual, emotional, financial, psychological, familial, cultural and/or societal is hereby rendered null and void. The full potential of the person named is, has been, and shall forevermore remain unconfined: Limitless and Unapologetic. May this Receipt serve as both reminder and remittance of the inheritance of power, creativity, fortitude, brilliance and majesty of the Ancestors that were, and the Ancestors that are to come. May the person named reclaim that they and the generations that are to come are free and can continue to live from a place of liberation, health, love, prosperity and bountiful joy. As the aforementioned person lives their liberation out loud, may their embodiment of love and light serve as a beacon to others. May said light shine atop the widest and highest hills and fill the depths of the deepest valleys. May this Receipt of Emancipation, witnessed by God, serve to declare and decree that you are, have been, and forever will be free, destined and highly favored. In lieu of a government-issued receipt and requisite reparations, may this Receipt symbolize a non-revocable freedom for the individual, their families and for their communities. Done in the State of California, this 27th day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-two. Written for our Ancestors to ratify by the author of: Emancipation Papers: A Truthtelling Journey Towards Awakening, Healing and Transformation.
In solidarity.
I AM Dr. Kecia Chivonne Brown.
Episode 21 – Know Thyself, Know for Thyself & Rise into Resilience – More Than Metaphors hosted by Dr. Kecia Brown
- Episode 21 – Know Thyself, Know for Thyself & Rise into Resilience
- Episode 20: Do You Have a "Love Space?"
- Episode 15: Poem – The Mothers Have Come
- Episode 19 – Part 1: The Nikole Hannah-Jones Effect: The Black Woman’s Artistry in Flipping Scripts and Tables
- Episode 19 – Part 2: The Nikole Hannah-Jones Effect: The Black Woman’s Artistry in Flipping Scripts and Tables
One response to “Hold on to THIS Receipt!”
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