A Pan-Abolitionist prayer for Leonard Peltier

By Julia Wright (guest) posted on June 14, 2024

“The only accounts we owe are to our children, the ancestors and those not yet born.”

Amílcar Cabral, whom I was honored to meet in Accra

just as we carry
our African roots
deep in the soil
of our ancestral memory
we live
and breathe
Pan Africanism
part of our praxis
and history

we pour libation to Kwame Nkrumah
and George Padmore
and T.R. Makonnen
and the freedom fighters
of the liberation movements
that trained
in Accra
to wrest independence
from the imperial vampire

we pour libation
to those who taught us
that the independence
of one African State
is nothing
unless it is connected
to the independence
of them all

and today
we vow we will not rest
till Leonard Peltier’s life
is wrested from the carceral empire –
we vow he will walk free
because his liberation
is connected
to the freedom
of them all

to the freedom of all political prisoners –
our own independence warriors
resisting
death by incarceration

to the freedom
of us all

tonight
we will light candles
till night’s end
and
at dawn
Pan Abolitionism –
the dream
in the gleam
of the eyes of our children
the ancestors
and those not yet born –
will begin to manifest
after our slavery-old quest