In Memory of the Igbo Landing
A Poem
May 1803 - Historical documents note a mass suicide of 75 enslaved West Africans at Igbo Landing or what is now known as Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island in Georgia. Rather than submit to servitude and bondage, the people overthrew their captors and chose death. It is said that they walked into the river singing: “The water spirit brought us. The water spirit will take us home.” The story is preserved in African American memory through oral history, folk tales and stories, but the events did happen. This poem, written in April of 2019, after the murders of Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and so many others is a sobering remembrance of what happens when humanity grossly imbalances the scales of justice. It is also important to note, that the Igbo Landing is an example of racial trauma and mental health.
In Memory of the Igbo Landing
sing me holy
river filled
memory drenched
in my ancestor's tears
unbowed and unbroken
african.
refusing
resisting
soil beneath my feet
choosing death
to sweat and misery
unbroken
african.
sing me holy
river filled
drenched in
song
the crescendo
sweeping across oceans
spanning generations
africans.
resisting
eric garner
trayvon martin
sandra bland.
bury me standing
river at my waist
the pact that we made
that if one goes we all go
the multitude of us
standing strong
the multitude of us caught in the current’s grip.
rain down the memory of our resistance.
fists clenched
constitution clad
memory of black
bodies resisting
american sensibilty.
sing me back to the river
long ago where we made a pact
where we touched and agreed.
the covenant
of africans
who stood shoulder to shoulder
sung to the creator and willed themselves
element to element back to spirit.
took up new bodies and never looked back
whose voices filled
bodies of water
spanning
the americas to the motherland.
bury me standing up
i refuse to fall.