Feb 26th, 2025
Black Excellence Spotlight: Read Susan’s Poem
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As part of our spotlight series for Black History Month, we are privileged to share a powerful poem from Susan, Procurement Officer at OCH, a reflection of her journey and the deep connection she holds with those who came before her.
Through her words, she invites us to see her path through the eyes of her ancestors—those whose struggles, sacrifices, and resilience paved the way for her to grow up conscious and proud of her roots. Her poem is a tribute to history, identity, and the legacies we all carry within us.
Susan shared these words with us after reading her piece at a staff event:
I am so glad that I got to share my story with the eyes, ears, hearts, and minds of those in the room. I felt honoured and nervous. Writing it was one thing, delivering it was another. My hands were shaking, and my heart was racing, but this moment was bigger than me. I smiled because I could feel people truly listening, leaning in, connecting. I chose a spoken word writing style—because spoken word is about rhythm, depth, emotion, and connection. As Maya Angelou said, “People may forget what you say, but they never forget how you make them feel”. When I closed with “Asé , Asé , Asé” and heard the voices call back, that moment sealed it! This wasn’t just my acknowledgement, this was ours.
Black History month is a time of remembrance, but also a time of recognition, celebration, and continuation. It’s about seeing how far we’ve come and recognizing how much farther we can go…..together.
I am grateful for the opportunity to share this moment. Thankful, that I got to share it with all of you! I hope that it reminds us all to keep listening, keep learning, and keep honouring the stories that shape us.
Susan
Before I begin, I pour libations.
I pour for the ones who came before me, whose footsteps paved the way.
I pour for the ones whose names were lost to time but whose spirits remain with us.
I pour for the warriors, the healers, the builders, the storytellers.
I pour for the mothers and fathers, the stolen and the free, the lost and the found.
I pour for those who crossed oceans in chains.
I pour for those who resisted in quiet ways and loud.
I pour for those who could not see this moment but dreamed of it still.
African Ancestral Acknowledgment
When I was asked to do the African ancestral acknowledgment,
I hadn’t recognized my own entry—
An entry of the ancestors.
An entry back through a door that once had no return.
An entry into our ledger.
Until a DNA test came along, I didn’t even have this.
No records.
No passed-down names.
No whispered stories of where we began.
Only fragments.
Only questions.
Only silence.
But I see it now.
And I stand here today because of those who came before me.
I acknowledge them—not just in memory, but in presence.
Not just in survival but in legacy.
Not just in struggle but in strength.
I speak for the names I do not know.
I honour the faces history refused to show.
I acknowledge my family—
the builders, the protectors,
the ones who carried more than just weight…
But, because they did—here I stand.
For many, family history is written in stories, traditions, and names passed down.
For me?
It stops.
It stops at a bill of sale.
A bill of sale for an unnamed, likely Negro, 22, Buck,
Strong. Illiterate. Farm hand. Good inventory.
That is where my lineage is recorded—not in a family tree, but in a ledger.
But let me make something clear—
That paper? It does not define him.
He took a name.
Because of him, I am me.
I do not carry his pain.
I carry his power.
I do not carry his silence.
I carry his voice.
The Unseen, The In-Between, The Unforgotten
Some walked unseen—
too Black for one, not Black enough for the other.
Some swallowed their truth,
tongues tied in survival, fists wrapped in silence.
Some wore faces that did not fit,
passing between worlds that never claimed them,
standing at doors that swung both ways,
never fully home, never fully gone.
But even in the hush of history—
they were here.
Even in the places where light dared not go—
they endured.
They folded sorrow into song.
They braided maps into the hair.
They turned whispers into weapons
and quiet steps into revolution.
They were the in-between,
but they were never in doubt.
Because their story did not disappear in the dark.
It lives.
It moves.
It breathes—here, now, in me.
More Than Survival – We Are the Acknowledgment
Too often, when we speak of our people, we only speak of struggle.
But our history is not just what was done to us.
It is what we did despite it.
We built with hands that were told to break.
We learned with minds they tried to keep voided.
We rose—again and again—where we were meant to fall.
We did not just survive.
We became.
We are the architects of what comes next.
We are the ink rewriting the narrative.
We are not echoes of a broken past.
We are the unshaken future.
As I wind this down
My father fought a war on two fronts.
A physical one overseas.
And one when he returned home.
And with those same hands—
hands that fought for a country that did not wave a flag for him—
he placed a Black baby doll in mine.
Not from a department store.
Not from a brand that suddenly found diversity,
but from the hands of our own.
Because when Black Barbies didn’t exist,
he made sure I saw myself.
He made sure I understood that who I am is enough.
That I am not erased.
That I am not invisible.
And when he reached out his hand to me—
It wasn’t just five on the Black hand side.
Not just a dap…
Dignity.
And Pride.
So, Let This Be My Entry
Not in a ledger of ownership
but in a record of resilience.
They set the price,
but we marked our value.
They tried to close the book,
but we cracked the spine.
What they started in ink,
we made a bloodline.
Their entry…..A receipt.
This record….Mine.
Asé, Asé, Asé
