The Drumbeat of Liberation: Juneteenth in My Bones

Today, we gather in spirit to honor Juneteenth, a day that reminds us both of how far we’ve come and how long we waited. It was June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas — more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation — to finally announce freedom to those still enslaved. That moment was not the beginning of freedom, nor its end. It was a beat in a much longer rhythm — one that still echoes in our bones. One that we, as Black women, continue to move to every single day. I feel Juneteenth not just as a date on a calendar, but as a sensation in my body — in the way my shoulders sway to a drumbeat, in the way my spirit rises with each step, and in the sacred rhythm I’ve come to know through both struggle and healing. Dancing Through My Own Juneteenth When I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 74, it felt like the ground dropped beneath me. Time froze. My space shrank. I was thrust into a personal captivity — one made not of chains, but of fear, confusion, and uncertainty. And yet, something inside me began to stir. Something ancestral. Something sacred. It was dance — not the kind I learned from a medical book, but the kind passed down through my lineage. Traditional Igbo movement. Drum. Gong. Prayer. The rhythm of remembrance. In that space of fear, I read Einstein’s words: “Time and space are not conditions in which we live, but modes by which we think.” I realized that I had been given a chance not just to survive — but to reshape my spacetime. To move differently. To think and live with purpose. So I made a covenant with God: If I live, I will dance again. I will tell my story. I will make healing a rhythm others can join.