This image is of Peggy (R), then a 19 year-old SNCC member, next to future civil rights icon, Dr. Dorothy Cotton (L), after a 1962 church burning in Georgia—the state that Peggy's great-great grandparents, William & Ellen Craft, famously escaped from slavery nearly 115 years earlier...
MY
W E E K L Y
W O R D
SPECIAL GRADUATION RECOGNITION
6.12.2021
Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely
Dr. Dorothy Cotton
As we enter this time of graduations at all levels, I wrote a special poem for our young people that I hope will be a source of inspiration as they move forward...reach forward...to this next wonderful stage of their lives...
REACHING FORWARD: A GRADUATION SALUTE
​​by Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely
​ You do know of course that you live in the whole world:
it is yours to revere… to claim…. to impact.
In the collective imagination all are cherished, all are vulnerable
All are responsible.
It is a carousel of possibilities.
Today we celebrate each of you impacting the arc of your life.
We lift you up for completing this step of graduation so that you may become
a tribal member of legacy and learning.
It is a fierce ride this life we must lead; it is not for the faint of heart.
But then you already know that; you remember the hurdles,
the late-night doubts,
all the overcoming that kept you drumming on.
For you, for us, for our African American community,
you are a beginning and a continuation.
Please accept our pride in you and carry it forth into the wider world.
As we salute you this evening cry out in unison:
Amandla! Ashay! Amen! and Hallelujah!
© 2021 Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely. All rights reserved.