My name is Jen Blue Barnes. I was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. I wasn’t taught about Juneteenth in school growing up. In fact, I wasn't taught many facts about black American history. That said, this is our collective history and moving forward I will remember and celebrate the liberty of black people in this land. 

 

“Allow no sleep to your eyes, no slumber to your eyelids. Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler.” Proverbs 6:4-5

 

The Regrafted Root

 

I’ve awakened enough to know better than to call myself “woke”. I’m sitting up straight enough to shake away the grogginess of slumber, but I am not fully awake. I am Awakening to newness of life because I have sought out new teachers who have patiently given me new perspective about different realities people live within the same America we all call home. These new teachers have grown my faith and kept me inside the fold I debated leaving, because the truth I had been taught as a child had taken root, but the modeling of it I had witnessed in some areas just weren’t measuring up... 

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