Juneteenth 2070
“‘Where are you from?’ they asked. I’m from the Nile River Delta. And the Mississippi River Delta. And all the Black rivers. I’m from my mama. I’m from the future. And I am from time immemorial. My ancestors originated in the place we call Afrika, along with every other being on Earth. As time and necessity had it, we moved, again and again. Across land bridges that are no more. Across manmade bridges that are no more. Migrating. Like honey bees and butterflies on silken wings.”
“No one asks where you’re from now. We only ask, ‘Where are you going?’ Because we are all trusted in the understanding that we’re going to where we need to be.”
This is an excerpt from the grand prize winning essay, “I Am From My Mother,” written by 50-year-old Atabey LaTisha Yeye, born in the year 2020 and now an elder in the Old USA, affectionately known to her communal area as Tisha. She remembers a time before the Reorganization when people commonly greeted each other with the query, “Where are you from?”
In an interview, she said, “The Reorganization seems like a distant memory now, but there was a time when it completely transformed life here on Earth. There were too many guns and people were using them to keep each other behind invisible lines called ‘borders’ [pronounced BORE-durrs]. Then climate change brought such a rise in sea-level and incredibly intense storms around most of the globe. This made us all have to move quickly to safety wherever we could find it over the course of about 20 years.”
Tisha is referring to the landmark Global Reorganization Act of 2035, which permanently suspended the often arbitrary lines of separation of what used to be known as nation states in order to expedite human migration between territories in pursuit of arable land, livable temperatures, potable water, and safe housing.
“I laugh now when I remember the sight of everyone coming together to tear down those border gates and walls. My school books had stories of border walls coming down here and there throughout history, especially one in a place called ‘Berlin,’ I think. But then, boom…No walls anywhere,” she recalled.
Tisha’s family briefly spent time in a detention center at the border of the Old USA when she was a child.
“I cried and cried because it was freezing cold inside that place. Men with guns kept us behind gates. But then the waters came bursting in and we had to show the guards how to make rafts out of mattresses.
Tisha’s favorite thing about her life today in the Old USA is the absence of guns. Once the sale of guns and ammunition were outlawed during the Reorganization and people willingly traded them for food and shelter, armed conflicts decreased by 99%. Federal legislation created tax incentives for the conversion of jails and prisons, and replaced courts with community restorative justice councils.
These councils, known to some as “ReJoes,” now support the needs of residents who have been harmed and mediate solutions in collaboration with those who have committed harm.
“When I’m in a restoration circle, the sounds of my people’s voices softly singing and the feeling of my neighbors’ physical presence around me makes me feel so safe and held, even if the questions we’re answering are hard,” she said.
Tisha and her family are now stewards of a 100-acre section here in Orun-Rere District, on a grassy territory known during Tisha’s childhood as New York City.
“My great-grandchildren can’t believe there was a time where we shipped food across the earth on trucks, sat it on hard shelves under fluorescent lights for months, and then ate it out of plastic.”
Now that long distance supply chains are largely a thing of the past, all shipping containers have been repurposed for housing, coffee shops, public art, story bars, gardens, and other uses fit for these times. As the world community gears up to celebrate 10 years since the Reorganization, we asked Tisha’s family what their message is to this generation.
“Mother Earth is a strong-willed parent to us,” said restorative climatologist Marcus Brown, Tisha’s cousin and a leading voice in the Reorganization. “We stripped her of her lifeblood while expecting her to nourish us. And so today we must never forget: Always center each other’s well being as the ultimate expression of caring for our Mother.”
Tisha will join millions of people around the planet in making the pilgrimage across many miles to Nu Inati, formerly known as Ethiopia, where they will be welcomed by people directly descended from Mitochondrial Eve. The Reorganization anniversary will feature a bringing of foods, seeds, arts, medicines, technologies and stories from around the world for collection into a capsule that is revisited every 5 years, under the theme “In the Arms of Our Mother.”