I’ve been in an extended season of grief. I’m still there. Kujichagulia, as the second Nguzo Saba principle of Kwanzaa, speaks to this reality. Granted, this virtue is often considered with respect to cultural independence and the importance of naming ourselves, for ourselves. But there’s another aspect to it.
Applied to grief, Kujichagulia describes our sacred prerogative to lament at our own pace, to finger through our memories like a rosary, to decide on the significance and value of our experiences. Such work happens in communities, for sure. It is indebted to the inheritance of known and unknown ancestors, for sure. But within that inheritance of interdependence, a reserve of choice-making and meaning making power exists.
In honor of this virtue, in honor of the intrinsic dignity of grief, in all its forms, I offer the following words on Kujichagulia.
Self-determination is what it is.
It is self-chosen sequence:
today, it’s mourn, celebrate, resolve.
tomorrow, it’s resolve, celebrate, mourn.
Self-determination been one of my favorite principles for a while now.
My people choose our cemeteries, and not only with grass and tombstones.
Sometimes the geography of grief is bigger, wider than that —
Like candles on sidewalks,
Like murals on walls,
Like tattoos and ink on melanin skin,
We been choosing the language, the litany, the labor we remember.
They tell me Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy.
I tell them, ok, sometimes, maybe, under certain conditions.
Sometimes, just nah.
I tell them Burnett, Wilkes, Bethune, Douglass, Wells-Barnett, Baldwin, Bulter, Morrison, Sankara, Nkrumah.
Who would you name?
Whose name do you carry?
Self determination will be what it will be.
In 2054, I will remember the things we did this day, the reaping and sowing in our special ways.
We pledge to preserve the stories.
We hold onto our heritage over here.
We beautify yesterdays in prose.
We decorate the past in poetry.
We identify our cloud of witnesses.
In their wake, we carry forward their work,
In our own special ways.