Grandmas Granted Access
black girl black girl
acknowledge your ancestors
grandmas plummeted plows, became friends with dirt, shimmered in freedom’s formation,
grandmas tended the slave master's high-class homes, chopped cotton, hid beyond whip
backlashes by faith, baskets were top hats on their heads, hymnals were tickets to the sunshine
train, telegrams were prayers opening floodgates, trees mark the names knives put there, some
sap blood, others watered leaves with their tears. rivers know the feet, sandals sailed, landing
past southern bondage, followed a North Star without stopping or making excuses. greatness of
these grandmas was not better for their time, but a legacy where more black females would lead,
not letting a system have their labels say- inadequate, inferior; that mindset is buried, dead
indefinitely.
black girl black girl
grandmas granted access
impact and empower
Traci Neal is a neurodivergent poet residing in Columbia, South Carolina. Neal has shared her poetic journey and late diagnosis in USA Today, Newsweek, Good News Post- UK, and The New York Times, to name a few. In 2025, she had over 50 poems published in 40 different publications. On March 11, 2026, an excerpt of Neal's poem, along with writers A Memi Sei and Brittany J. Green, was part of the Letters to America project to highlight America 250 from the black woman's perspective. The words were composed into a song sung by Soprano Karen Slack at Carnegie Hall.
