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Delicia Daniels

How to be The Barrier

New Orleans, La., old slave block in St. Louis Hotel, Between 1900 and 1910
This platform is designed to construct black families. Assessed along thick windowpanes, storylines framed around young affordable Black mothers and children appear larger than life. Pillars loom above Black fathers with the strength of one thousand columns. Onlookers learn to distance themselves…

Stair door, U.S. Courthouse, Natchez, Mississippi, 21st Century Courthouse
This courthouse is an extended auction block. Black families enter these doors expecting some type of separation: from audiences, from justice, from family members. They exit/exist as different people. Forever labeled. Forever changed. Onlookers learn to distinguish themselves…

2020 – George Floyd Mural: Forever Breathing in our Hearts
I nestle my body between Big Floyd’s left wing and his unforgettable image, assembled in gray and white hues. Floyd’s final words re/turn to each red brick, every protest, every mother, father, and child. Anger, fear, and sympathy consume my body, a map of rage invisible to the naked eye. My progression cannot be accessed. My progression is not for sale. Head held high. Back, straight. Black, straight. I shall not be moved.

Committed in Three-Part Au-ton-o-my

Click image for accessible text
Photo archive: Asheville Messenger

Risk unchartered:

bend

fall

rise

snap

from the diaphragm

Click image for accessible text

Fugitive Slave Act of 1793

SEC.3. And be it also enacted, That when a person held to labor in any

of the United States, or in either of the Territories on the Northwest or

South of the river Ohio, under the laws thereof, shall escape into any

other part of the said States or Territory, the person to whom such

labor or service may be due, his agent or attorney, is hereby empowered

to seize or arrest such fugitive from labor, and to take him or her before any

Judge of the Circuit or District Courts of the United States etc. …

And be it also enacted, that Sam’s judge, Allah, shall part the Ohio river.

Under the laws of Allah We shall excavate diminished Territories.

Under the laws of Allah We shall quilt black laws in the South.

Under the laws of Allah We shall traffic futuristic chants:

A-kri-eeeeeeeee in the North

And be it also enacted, that persons held to labor

in any part of the United States are hereby

empowered. The time has come. Exist.

Mid-1800s article or advertisement with a small icon of a person walking with a bindle (knapsack on a stick). Some words have been crossed out with black marker, herein labeled “[redacted]”. The remaining text reads:

COMMITTED. [redacted] a [redacted] man, [redacted] his name is S A M . [redacted] about 24 years old, about 5 feet 6 or 7 inches high, of a dark brown color, straight and well made, and has the evidence on his back that he has been severely whipped. He [redacted] is a free man, [redacted] Cleaveland County, N. C., raised him. The owner, [redacted] will [redacted] pay [redacted] he will be dealt with as the law directs [redacted] Feb. 3, 1848. 388—tf.

[treble clef and 5 staff lines with no music notes]
1. I am a man.
2. Risk un - char - tered:
[treble clef and 5 staff lines with no music notes]
Etch this script - ture a – round my bo – dy.
Re - write Flesh.

Note for readers: The numbers indicate verses; so the lines should be read in the following order: [Verse 1.] I am a man. / Etch this script – ture a – round my bo – dy. [Verse 2.] Risk un – char – tered: / Re – write Flesh.

Delicia Daniels is a poet, activist, and person who stutters. Her first publication, The Language We Cry In, was selected as the Discovery Prize winner for the 2017 Writers’ League of Texas Book Awards. Her second poetry collection, Abolition Chronicles, was selected as a finalist for the 2023 Center for African American Poetry and Poetics Book Prize and The Poetic Justice Institute Prize.

https://www.deliciadaniels.ink

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