Something Good Left

Juneteenth marks the day when the news of emancipation finally reached enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, more than two years after freedom had already been declared. It is a day about freedom delayed, freedom denied, and the terrible distance between what this country says and what Black people are forced to survive.

That is why, for me, Juneteenth has never been only a celebration. It is also a question. What does freedom mean in a city where so many Black people are still living without shelter, without safety, without enough people willing to look them in the eye? What does remembrance require of us if it does not ask us to do something with our hands, our money, our time, and our care?

Which is why, for the eighth year, my foundation, We Have Stories, is raising money to support unhoused Black people in New York City. This year, we are trying to raise $20,000 so we can provide 100 people with care packages and direct cash support. These packages include socks, toiletries, snacks, water bottles, personal care items, and other essentials that many of us use without thinking, but that can mean a great deal to someone trying to survive without stable housing.

Right now, we are at $7,000 of our $20,000 goal, and I am asking every person reading this to donate $5.

I know that sounds like a small ask to some, but small asks become powerful when enough people decide that they are not too small to answer. Realistically, I also know how the internet works. Maybe 2% of the people who open this will actually give. I have talked about that before with my dear friend Robert Jones Jr., about how hard it is to get people to give. Especially when people often donate when they can connect the need to a face, to a name, to some immediate story that makes the suffering close enough to touch.

The difficult thing is that I do not take pictures of the people we serve (safety, anonymity, and respect). I take pictures of the care packages, the tables, the supplies, the bags being packed, the items being purchased, the people showing up to do the work. But I will not ask someone living through one of the hardest moments of their life to become evidence for someone else’s compassion. I do not want their pain turned into a poster. I do not want their circumstance reduced to proof.

But I do have stories.

Last Juneteenth, we were in East Harlem, handing out care packages from my car. Robert was there with me, along with the illustrator and author Nikkolas Smith. They had gotten out to distribute packages while I waited nearby, watching people come up, receive what we had, and continue on through the day.

A few feet away, I noticed an unhoused Black woman in a wheelchair. She looked to be in her sixties. As we were giving packages to other people, she started rolling away from us.

At first I was confused. She had seen us. She was close enough to know we were handing out supplies. She could have asked. She could have waited. But instead, she turned herself away, and rolled toward the distance.

So I got out of the car, grabbed a care package, and brought it over to her.

I said, “Hey, wait a second.”

She looked up at me, startled. I asked why she hadn’t waited.

And she said, “I just figured I had missed something everyone else knew about already. There’s usually nothing good for me left. I don’t think anybody even sees me, so I was trying not to be disappointed I guess. It’s hard out here.”

I gave her the package, smiled as best I could, went back to the car, and started to cry.

Because what do you do with a statement like that? What do you do when someone tells you, plainly, without performance or self-pity, that life has taught them not to expect kindness? What do you do when a Black woman in a wheelchair, living outside in one of the richest cities on earth, has learned to protect herself by assuming that whatever good is being offered in front of her must not be meant for her?

You do the only thing you can do. You refuse to let that be the end of the story.

That is what this fundraiser is for. Yes, it is for socks and soap and snacks and water and cash, because people need material support, not just sentiment. But it is also for the moment when someone who has been trained by this world to expect nothing is reminded, even briefly, that they have not disappeared from the human family.

This year, we want to reach 100 unhoused Black New Yorkers. We are already at $7,000, which means we have made real progress, but we still have $13,000 to raise.

If you can donate $5, please do it today. If you can give more, give more. If you cannot give, send this to someone who can. I am not asking because $5 solves homelessness, or because one care package can undo the cruelty of a city that has allowed so many people to fall through its hands. I am asking because the fact that we cannot do everything has never absolved us from doing something.