[Speaker 15] (0:00 - 0:21) We balance with different colors, we're crossing the stage. We party in sun or rain, we don't care what the people say. But the music in my veins, so much power I can't explain. Until I go that day, when the father take me away. All of my friends gonna say, I'm phenomenal. [Speaker 3] (6:23 - 7:24) Testing one, two, three. Hello, Swamp Scott. All right. That was a little weak, and I feed off of energy, and I need the energy on the stage right now. Hello, Swamp Scott. Thank you. For those of you who do not know me, my name is Tammy Faye Meneade. I'm a Swamp Scott resident. I'm also the town hall's wonderful DEIB consultant, working on different projects to help make Swamp Scott a more belonging and amazing community. Can we get a shout out for that? Awesome. Welcome to Juneteenth Jubilee 2023 here in Swamp Scott. The theme of today is what does freedom mean to you? And so to get us all started, I would love to welcome Chief Quesada and Chief Archer to the stage. Let's give it up. Thank you. [Speaker 5] (7:56 - 10:29) All right. I've been here longer, so we decided that I'm going to go first. Welcome to Swamp Scott's Juneteenth celebration. It's great to see all you people here. This is a really special day for all of us in the town hall and public safety. We really enjoy it. This is another fantastic opportunity for all of us to all get together and enjoy each other's company. In a little under three weeks, we're going to celebrate the nation's independence, the nation's freedom. It's a complicated day for a lot of us. It represents a real birth of freedom on this continent. It represents the American colonists throwing off oppression and embracing their own self-determination. It's complicated for some of us. It should be for all of us because it didn't represent a universal freedom, but it did mean freedom for all of us, and it is all of our day. We should all embrace that, regardless of where your family hails from. We should all embrace the Fourth of July. Juneteenth is similarly nuanced. It represents a new birth of freedom for our country. Juneteenth represents another step towards a more perfect freedom, towards a more perfect union. Juneteenth represents a really deep layer of freedom for a lot of people. It meant people had freedom from their families being broken up. It meant parents didn't have to worry about their children being sold away from them. It meant people could determine what they wanted to do with their lives, where they wanted to live, where they wanted to be, and how they wanted to live their lives. It was another important step forward. But that doesn't mean it's not everyone's day. In the same way that the Fourth of July, I wholeheartedly embrace the Fourth of July as my day as an American, as their freedom, we should all, regardless of where we're from, embrace Juneteenth because it's an important day for all of our freedom. If we're not all free, none of us are free. So I just think we should all keep that in mind and all be glad and look around us and just look around at the diversity of the people that we have here today and really, really just try to take a picture of this in your mind and remember this because this is a wonderful day and this is a wonderful celebration and we're just very lucky to be here and we're so happy to have you all here. So everybody enjoy the day and have a great time. [Speaker 6] (10:34 - 11:16) Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for being here. I am so proud to be your police chief and I'm so proud to be here standing with you today recognizing the importance of freedom, equality, and justice. When I think of Juneteenth, I think of Juneteenth is our history. Juneteenth is the struggles of individuals and Juneteenth is also our triumph. So on behalf of the town and behalf of the public, Swampscott Police Department, the town of Swampscott, I just want to say thank you for being here and let's celebrate the most important day in our independence, Juneteenth. Happy Juneteenth. [Speaker 3] (11:38 - 13:10) All right, y'all. I'm here to introduce our next speaker. The Reverend Dr. Andre K. Bennett is the current pastor of youth and young adults at Zion Baptist Church in Lynn. He also serves as the president of the Essex County Community Organization. In addition to his role as a director of Business Alliance for the Boston Ujima Project, Reverend Andre is an immigrant from Jamaica who has dedicated his life to the service and advocacy for marginalized communities and works primarily with the BIPOC and LGBTQ plus communities. Reverend Andre has personal experiences with racial discrimination, profiling, and racially targeted interactions with police on the North Shore and the greater Boston areas. This has helped him hone certain skills that are needed to keep the conversation going at the city, town, county, state, and federal levels. Passionate about community development, racial empowerment, and immigrant youth and family services, Reverend Andre continues to devote himself to the advancement of BIPOC individuals here at home in Massachusetts and our country at large. Please help me welcome to the stage, Reverend Dr. Andre K. Bennett. [Speaker 1] (13:26 - 27:11) He's trying to get me to act up with that. How's it going, Swampskat? How we doing? First, before I get into it, please give it up for Tammy Faye and the town of Swampskat for making this event happen. Sister Nina Simone said, I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. I wish I could break all the bars holding me. I wish I could say all the things that I should say. Say them loud, say them clear for the whole round world to hear. I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. The fire chief spoke of the two independence days in America, the two separate days of freedom. And I'm going to take a slightly different tone. No disrespect to you, sir, a slightly different tone. Because as Tammy Faye read in my bio, I am an immigrant from Jamaica who came here 15 years ago and came here with a young family to a country that presented great hopes. That we were told, we were raised to believe that it is the land of the free, the home of the brave. And when I came here, I was free until I got here was the first time I understood and felt what limitations felt like. It was the first time in my life I've ever had to complete a form and on that form I had to declare my ethnicity. There is a reason why that is the case. It is the first time in my life I've ever went to the mall and had people chase after me. And you see, I came to a little church, I was called to a little church in Lynn called Zion Baptist Church. And I remember, sir, starting at Zion as a young man with a young, beautiful family. And I stood in the pulpit one Sunday and I said to Zion Baptist Church, I will not get involved in this race war that you guys are dreaming up. You see, I was coming from Jamaica, I didn't understand, I didn't know what race war was. And so when people, members of my congregation, a predominantly black congregation would meet me in my office and complain to me about all kinds of stuff, I couldn't relate to the lived African American experience. And so I told them, oh, there is no race war in America. Young men just need to pull their pants up. Young women just need to take a little bit of the attitude out of their necks when they speak. People just need to dress a little bit better. And I'm looking at the young lady, yes, you have all right to shake your head at me because I was a fool for saying that in the pulpit. To a church that was built by descendants of slaves that came from Nova Scotia and pitched a little board church on the street, on the corner of Union Street and were told two days after they built their church there that they do not belong there. And because they refused to move, their building was burned to the ground. I was a fool for telling them that there is no race war in this country. Young men just need to dress better and carry themselves better and speak better and answer better. I grew up in the home of a cop, she's sitting over there. Young men just need to do a little bit better. Well, this is how I dress every single day most days until very recently. I dressed as best as I thought I could. I currently sit on three, not one, not two, but three PhDs. I speak this way in every interaction I have and I was still being called boy by police officers in the presence of my 16-year-old daughter. I was still being pulled over in every corner. I was still being chased in the mall. So listen, though we do celebrate the 4th of July as freedom for America, it was not freedom for us. And here we are many, many years, centuries later and we still are not free. Sister Nina Simone said, I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. I wish I knew how it feels to drive down the highway and see a police cruiser behind me and just drive comfortably without worrying. I wish I knew how to have a conversation with my 20-year-old son and not have to beg him to come home alive. I wish I knew what it feels like to walk in the mall without my collar and not be trailed every step of the way. I wish I could walk into stores and not be asked what I want. I wish I was never pulled over in Massachusetts and asked if I'm lost. I wish I knew how it feels to be free. Freedom is not experienced by all of us. Hello, somebody. I heard Sister Liz Wright in her song said, I don't know how my mother walked her troubles out. I don't know how my father stood his ground. I don't know how my people survived slavery. I do remember, and that's why I believe and I share this before, that it is our belief that keeps us, can I take this mic off? It is our belief that keeps us moving every single day when they murder us on the street, when they murder us in our temples, when they murder us in synagogue, when they murder us in our place of comfort. It is our belief that someday we too will enjoy the freedom that everybody else enjoys in this country that keeps us going. I wish I knew how it feels to be free. And Swanscott, I come by not to stir up any trouble, but just to let you know that we still have a lot of work to do. Yes, this is a great step and we are doing a wonderful thing by acknowledging Juneteenth as the day when those in Texas two years later finally got the news that we were our own people. We could choose where we live. We could choose what last names we use. We could choose how we worship. I wish we didn't have to do that. So whilst this is a great start, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he said in a speech that power without love, it is reckless and abusive. And love without power is sentimental and anemic. I'll say that again. Power without love is reckless and abusive. And oh, we have experienced some reckless and some abusive love we have experienced in our community. You see, when you think, when those, let me not say you, when people think that we are fighting Tommy Faye for better housing, we're not fighting for better housing. We're fighting for equal housing. There is a difference. The reason why people deem it as better is because they themselves won't live in what we live in. So anything up from that is considered better. But that's not what we're not fighting for better. We're fighting for equal housing. The reason why people think we're fighting for better schools is because their children don't have to go through metal detectors and are not pat down by police officers. We ain't fighting for better schools. We're fighting for equal school for our children. If your children won't go there, then our children shouldn't go there. If your children don't have to go through it, then our children shouldn't have to deal with it. If you won't live there, then we shouldn't live there. I wish I knew how it feels. So we've seen reckless and abusive love. I mean power without love. We have seen in very recent times, there is a debate where women will need to get permission to decide what they do with their body. That is reckless and abusive power. And in that same speech, Dr. King says, love without power is sentimental and anemic. So many of our allies, they love us and they love the work that we do, but they won't invite us to the table to make the decisions. Hello somebody. They love us and they love our cause and what we're fighting for, but they know what is best for us. That ain't power. That is sentimental love. They love us and they love to see the flags going up, but we shouldn't be on city government or in the town administrative buildings. They love us and they love to hear the songs that we sing and the worship services that we partake in, but we shouldn't be at the table. That is sentimental and anemic kind of love. What does freedom mean to us? Not just to me. I told you, I wish I knew how it feels to be free. But freedom means that I don't have to worry about my brother. My little, the little young man there that's twisting his hair. I don't have to worry about him as he grows up because he is judged by the content of his character and not because he has dreadlocks in his hair. Hello somebody. Freedom means that our teenage boys are free to walk about in their hooded shirt and we don't have to worry that they look like criminals because that is what is deemed to be criminal. Freedom means that we live in a country where justice and equality means justice and equality for all, not for some. It doesn't mean that you get this much, but if you come too close, it is too close. Freedom means that we all are free. So Swamskata, I leave, leave you with this. Let it not just be about raising the flag once per year. It looks good so far, but there's still work to do. It still can look a little better. Amen, somebody. Amen, somebody. We still can see some more melanin in Swamskata. Amen, somebody. We still can see some more melanin in town governance in Swamskata. Amen, somebody. We still can see some color up in the buildings and on the streets. Hello, somebody. We still got some work to do and when we sit and we hear people talking and they're misinformed and they're purposely spreading misinformation, we stand up. Hello, somebody. That is what freedom means and looks like and that is what real and true love and power looks like. Don't just love us, empower us. Don't just love us, empower us. Don't just stand aside and watch. Get in the ring. Get the work doing because none of us is free until all of us are free. God bless you. [Speaker 7] (27:39 - 28:08) Can we give it up one more time for the Reverend? Thank you everyone so much for being here. My name is Latoya Ogunbona, also known as Miss O. I am the Metco director. I have a very special person coming up here to play his rendition of What Freedom Is. I have Aiden Tejeda-Ulbricht who will be coming up here and playing a song for you guys called Sometimes. Thank you. [Speaker 4] (28:29 - 31:15) Overhead when I hold you next to me You will see, oh now In a day or two Close my eyes Feel me now I don't know how you could not love me now You will love, can you feel mine too? Over there and I want you lot to love You cannot, oh no From the way I do You will see, oh now In a day or two Aiden, you did that. [Speaker 7] (31:15 - 31:34) Like, I'm not even going to do it. Thank you Aiden so much. Next up we have some very talented students that we've been working with. They're going to be reciting an ode we owe. So please give it up for them. [Speaker 10] (32:10 - 32:19) Hi, my name is Kirsten and I am in second grade. I am from Boston, Massachusetts. [Speaker 11] (32:22 - 32:27) Hi, my name is Abube. I am a junior and I am from Nigeria. [Speaker 8] (32:34 - 32:38) Hi, my name is Ashley and I'm in fifth grade and I'm from Nigeria. [Speaker 13] (32:44 - 32:47) Hi, my name is Keoni Sims. I'm a junior. I'm from Boston, Massachusetts. [Speaker 9] (32:49 - 32:56) Hi, I'm Monica. I'm in eighth grade and I'm from Haiti. Today we'll be presenting an ode we owe by Amanda Gorman. [Speaker 10] (33:03 - 33:27) Atrocities across cities, towns, and countries. Climatic costs. Exhausted, angered, we are in danger. Not because of our numbers, but because of our numbness. We're strangers to one another's perils and pain. Unaware that the welfare of the public and the planet share a name. Equality. [Speaker 11] (33:29 - 33:53) Doesn't mean being the exact same, but enacting a vast aim. The good of the world to its highest capability. The wise believe that our people without power leaves our planet without possibility. Therefore, though poverty is a poor excuse, poor existence, complicity is a poor excuse. Though at a distance, though this battle was hard and huge, this fight we do not choose. [Speaker 8] (33:56 - 34:26) For preserving the earth isn't a battle too large to win, but a blessing too large to lose. This is the most pressing truth. That our people have only one planet to call home and our planet has only one people to call its own. We can either divide and be conquered by the few, or we can decide to conquer the future. And say that today, in you, John, we wrote, say that as long as we have humanity, we will forever have hope. [Speaker 14] (34:29 - 34:56) Together, we won't just be the generation that tries, but we'll be the generation that triumphs. Let us see a legacy where tomorrow is not driven by the human condition, but by our human conviction. While hope alone can't drive us now, with it we can brave the now. Because our hardest change hinges on our darkest challenges. [Speaker 13] (34:58 - 35:23) Thus, may our crisis be our cry, our crossroad. The oldest ode we owe each other. We chime it for the climate, for our communities. We shall respect and protect every part of this planet. Hand it to every class or identities they were born. This morn, let it be sworn that we are one, one human kin. Grounded by, not just by our grease we bear, but by the good we begin. [Speaker 9] (35:27 - 35:51) To anyone out there, I only ask that you care before it's too late. That you live aware and awake. That you lead with love in the hours of hate. I challenge you to heed this call. I dare you to shape our fate. Above all, I dare you to do good. [Speaker 11] (35:56 - 35:56) Thank you. [Speaker 3] (36:19 - 36:30) Hey, y'all. That was amazing. So, my son, Elijah, what does freedom mean to you? [Speaker 12] (36:35 - 37:09) Hi, my name's Elijah. I'm a rising second grader at the Park School. My pronouns are he, him. And what does freedom mean? Freedom means to me, it means joy, happiness, and acceptance. Acceptance inside means for me a warm hug. [Speaker 15] (37:09 - 37:11) Oh, come here. [Speaker 3] (37:11 - 38:43) I love you. Thank you, baby. All right, okay, all right. All right, I'm going to put you down. Okay, thank you. Thank you for sharing those words, my love. I really appreciate that. That really means something to me. So, our next speaker I'm going to introduce is Enzo. Enzo Silon Surin is a Haitian-born, award-winning poet, educator, liberatist, publisher, and social advocate. He is the author of four collections of poetry, including The American Scapegoat, which interrogates the socio-political framework of a democracy at war with itself and its humanity. And he also authored When My Body Was a Clenched Fist in 2020. It was winner of the 21st Annual Massachusetts Book Awards for Poetry. Woo! Yes. He is the co-editor of Where We Stand, Poems of Black Resistance, and the recipient of a number of honors, including a Brother Thomas Fellowship from the Boston Foundation and grants from the New England Poetry Club and a wonderful place in France. He is also the founding editor and publisher at Central Square Press and founder and executive director at Faraday Publishing Company Incorporated, a nonprofit where literary services and social advocacy are at the root. Without further ado, Enzo. [Speaker 16] (39:01 - 39:02) Thank you. [Speaker 2] (39:08 - 45:38) Whoever's doing the DJing, that was nice. I like that. Thank you, everyone, for coming out today. Our time is limited, so I'll just get right into it. I'm excited to be here because I get to not only discuss poetry but the purpose of poetry and also get to share the stage with my son, who's going to come up right after me. I want to start by saying how freedom is a concept, not a construct, meaning we didn't invent freedom, nor did we construct it. It was yours to begin with, so we had to construct something to deny ourselves the ability to be free. You want to ask yourself how long that's been in place and how long it's going to be in place. We were born free, and no one had anything to do with that. That's why they call them unalienable rights. I think every form of liberation, one must always remember why they had to be liberated in the first place, especially if we want to ensure that it doesn't happen again. I'll be sharing a few poems from American Scapegoat with you today in the spirit of this conversation that we have started already. You ask if I'm afraid of dying, but I don't have that luxury. I'm afraid of speaking or walking or running or driving or sleeping at night, of laughing too loud or talking too soft, of lingering loitering. As long as I'm murdering, we're okay. Know what to do to me, pre-write my eulogy like my demise was in probate. Look how they do to me, castrate my history, dunsack my misery all day. Sorrow on layaway, layaway, layaway, layaway, layaway, layaway. Sorrow on layaway, layaway, layaway, layaway, layaway, layaway. Casket the grief of my heart, casket the grief of my heart. A blinking on pennies in bushes of henny, I don't know. Casket the grief of my heart, there's plenty of plenty in bushes of henny, don't know where to sit. Then a bleat is heard from the vacuum of history. And it says, this is how to craft an American scapegoat. Make him a young boy in a project yard. Make his pants sag like a deferred dream. Make his mama not his real mama, his daddy ghost. Fill his eyes and mouth with bias so he resembles a child, not like your child, but one blood-borne and raised in a dunsack nation. Make his hands rebel against the union by putting a pistol in his hands. Christen him militant or desperado. Someone who preys on his neighbors, brothers, sisters, and friends. As a reaper who wants the chances that you took. Make him an aftermath or compilation of fraud, dead things. Make his house one created dangerously with memories and hearsay about huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Poster him the tired poor, a colossus of ales and depredation. Make him Lazarus, make him black. It's very hard to have something constructed, and conveniently you happen to look like the monster or the boogeyman that's been constructed. And I remember thinking about what it means to walk around a life. And it is not just a space. Walk around an entire life feeling like you are other and you're not wanted, yet you know you were born beautiful. And you are grateful for that freedom, but someone continues to deny it. So one example is I was sitting in a car one day and I saw a sign that said, if you lived here, you'd be home now. And I remember that echoed in my head and thinking, yeah, I kind of wish I lived here, but can I live here? Because for me, living in a place is not simply having a property, renting property, but can I have a life here? That's what it means to live, not just simply be in a space. And so being a poet, I decided to write a poem from that particular billboard. It's a poem titled, Elegy for the American Dream. And you're probably saying, why are we writing an elegy for the American Dream? Because at some point it was fashion with certain people in mind. And the list is way too long for me to list right now, but who is not included in the original American Dream? And it has changed, and I think it's time for us to update that. But before we can do that, we have to figure out what happened to the original American Dream. When it reads, this could be you, it doesn't mean you. You are not the day of them of advertisements. You are the dead array in time of Pablo Neruda's The Chosen Ones, the butts of jokes and machetes. You are not a feature in these stories. You are the withheld sneeze. You are the closed mouth cough, a cupped yawn. You are a hearsay, the practical omission of first editions and reports, not even byline in the scene of bread and wine. You are an insect, not the target of ads that said, if you lived here, you'd be home now. You are a dog's yelp in the back of a truck, soon to be fairytale as the hosanna of hyena ghost. You are at best a funeral hymn, which means your body is a grave site, and the city you orbit is a mass grave, to which not everyone in this ad is invited. When we talk about coming together as a community, we have to first know what the other members of the community are going through. And there's a lot of summaries, a lot of summation of what that experience. And in writing this book, I really wanted to address what it feels like to be both black and American, and why there is that division between those two words, often the backslash or the dash or everything else, right? When at the very beginning of this country, black people were here. And so when we talk about this separation, this division, it begins to really ruminate some thoughts, and one of them is, where can I go to be free? And I remember when my sons were born, when I have two boys, Nicholas is my first.