Where is Your Fire?
By Alexa Heard & Alexis Cureton
This piece was inspired by Sonia Sanchez's poem: "Catch the Fire,” which was published originally in her 1995 poetry collection entitled “Wounded in the House of a Friend.”
Sonia Sanchez at Miami Book Fair International, 1990. Photo by Dade County Archives.
When emancipation came, the ancestors entered into a time that historians now refer to as Reconstruction. During this time, Black men enjoyed the right to vote. Many were elected to high political offices, and Black communities and businesses began to sprout up all over the country and thrive. They were called "freedmen," but were they really free? Free to dream and imagine but not free to have the audacity of hope that turning that freedom-thought into praxis would be long-lasting.
As quickly as it began, it was undone by White Americans' concerted efforts who resented this newfound independence by Black Americans. This story has been repeated time and time again in World history, enter The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, enter The 1963 Birmingham Church Bombing, enter the systematic murder or Khalief Browder & Sandra Bland; a period of Black growth and advancements that is met with White hostility and destruction.
If we want to construct something new, we must destroy the old. To build a new house, we must destroy the master's house, clear the foundation, and salt the Earth. Our modern world cannot have any of the relics and structures of the old world; the old world did not serve us. The ancient world separated us from our lineage, the ancient world dehumanized us, the ancient world tried to steal our personhood and sell it back to us at a premium. We must burn our ancient world if we truly want to have another one. We can't rescue anything from the wreckage.
We cannot be afraid of the fire because we were born from the fire of slavery and sit-ins, and now it is the fire that must save us now.
My child, as I say these words to you, I feel deeply the pain you will experience on this journey. I weep for the nights you will cry out for your mother and me. I clench my chest as I know of the heartbreak that will become a friend to you as you strive to fulfill this prophecy. But I ask from you a different strength I could not muster.
I ask you for the strength to forgive because hate and rage will kill you. It is what killed me before a pale or dark face could. I ask that you uproot and shake the foundation of where hate once resided in this new world. In this new world, I ask that you forgive but never forget. You must build but with the intention of longevity, which requires an outright declaration of commitment to protecting what you craft with both your hands and with your body.
So Sun, I ask you, where is your fire?