250 Years Later: A Conversation Among Sisters

My Dear Linked Arms Queens,

As our nation prepares to celebrate 250 years of independence, I find myself sitting with a question that is much older than Fireworks, Parades, and Ceremonial displays.

What does freedom mean to a people whose ancestors helped build a nation that did not yet see them as fully human?

The question is not new.

Frederick Douglass asked it in 1852 when he delivered his famous speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” He stood before a nation celebrating liberty while millions remained enslaved. He did not reject the ideals of America. He challenged America to live up to them.

More than a century later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would call the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution a promissory note. He believed America had written a check marked “insufficient funds” to Black people, yet he refused to believe the bank of justice was bankrupt.

Sojourner Truth stood and demanded that Black women be seen.

Malcolm X demanded that Black people be respected.

Harriet Tubman walked people to freedom.

Fannie Lou Hamer fought for voting rights.

And countless mothers whose names history may never record prayed, worked, cooked, cleaned, taught, nursed, organized, and sacrificed so that their children could inherit something better than they did.

Their lives raise the same question before us today.

What do we do when systems seem determined to forget our contributions, minimize our suffering, erase our inventions, and question our worth?

The answer, I believe, is the same answer our ancestors carried.

We remember.

We remember that we were never merely victims of history.

We were builders of history.

We built families when family bonds were threatened.

We built churches when hope was scarce.

We built businesses when opportunity was denied.

We built schools when education was restricted.

We built movements when justice seemed impossible.

We built communities when society offered exclusion.

And we built a nation, often with hands that were unpaid, unseen, and uncelebrated.

Our resilience is not accidental.

It is inherited.

It is the result of generations who learned how to survive in two worlds at once.

We have always had to walk and chew gum at the same time.

We learned how to be excellent while being underestimated.

How to nurture while carrying our own wounds.

How to advocate while being ignored.

How to dream while being told to settle.

How to believe while living through disappointment.

Perhaps this is what Dr. Alvin Poussaint meant when he challenged people to see the Black person not merely as someone who happens to be Black, but as a complete human being whose life contains complexity, intelligence, wisdom, culture, and possibility.

The world often sees only our race.

But our story is larger than race.

We are scholars and artists.

Inventors and entrepreneurs.

Grandmothers and visionaries.

Teachers and healers.

Believers and builders.

We are descendants of people who refused to surrender their humanity.

As I think about Crispus Attucks, Samuel Gray, and James Caldwell, I am reminded that the struggle for freedom has always been complicated.

Some fought for ideals they themselves could not fully enjoy.

Some sacrificed without receiving the benefits of their sacrifice.

Yet their lives ask us a profound question:

What are we willing to plant that we may never personally harvest?

That question may be the defining question of every generation.

For us, perhaps the answer is not found in standing idly by, nor in carrying weapons of destruction.

Perhaps our arms are different.

Truth is our weapon.

Education is our weapon.

Economic empowerment is our weapon.

Community is our weapon.

Faith is our weapon.

Love is our weapon.

Voting is our weapon.

Organizing is our weapon.

Mentoring is our weapon.

Raising children who know who they are is our weapon.

Building institutions that outlive us is our weapon.

The work before us is not simply resistance.

It is creation.

The goal is not merely to survive injustice.

The goal is to build justice.

The goal is not merely to remember history.

The goal is to make history.

And if there is a particular calling on Black women, it may be this:

• To continue carrying truth while carrying hope.

• To continue nurturing while demanding accountability.

• To continue loving our children fiercely enough to prepare them for the world while simultaneously working to change the world they inherit.

The future has always been shaped by women who were willing to pray when others despaired, speak when others were silent, and build when others only criticized.

So as this nation marks 250 years, I choose neither blind celebration nor bitter resignation.

I choose remembrance.

I choose truth.

I choose hope with open eyes.

I choose the faith of my ancestors who believed that freedom was worth pursuing even when they could not yet see it.

I choose to honor those whose labor built wealth they would never possess, whose sacrifices opened doors they would never walk through, and whose prayers continue to cover generations they would never meet.

And I choose to believe that our children deserve the fullness of the promise that generations before us struggled to secure.

My sisters, the question before us is not whether the work remains. It does.

The question is whether we will continue it.

Will we continue to build where others destroy?

Will we continue to teach where others seek to erase?

Will we continue to create where others seek to diminish?

Will we continue to love where others sow division?

Will we continue to stand in the gap for our children and our communities?

I believe we will.

Because that is who we have always been.

We are the daughters of survivors.

We are the prayers of our grandmothers made visible.

We are the evidence that faith can endure generations.

We are not merely witnesses to history.

We are authors of the next chapter!

With love, faith, and resolve,

Your Sister…….Mary Curry

Linked Arms Co-President