Soar (2025) Acrylic on Canvas | 36x36
A tribute to resilience, freedom, and faith a reminder that even when the world tries to stop you, you were built to rise.
What Does It Mean to Be Black in America?
By Jeffery Beckham Jr.
What does it mean to be Black in America?
It means to wake up with the weight of history on your shoulders
and still rise like the sun
It means to know the storm,
and yet, to build an arch to survive the very rain that tried to drown you.
What does it mean to be Black in America?
It means to carry generations in your heart,
ancestors whispering “keep going” in the quiet between heartbeats.
It’s smiling in spaces that weren’t built for you,
and still redesigning them with your brilliance.
What does it mean to be black in America, to survive he hanging chads of a contentious flag and to still rise above..
It’s love in motion.
It’s struggle turned symphony.
It’s rhythm and resistance,
a soul that can’t be silenced.
What does it mean to be Black in America?
It’s to bleed and still believe.
To hurt and still heal.
To walk through the fire
and come out engraved in light.
What does it mean to be Black in America?
It’s to soar, not because the sky is easy,
but because gravity was never strong enough
to hold down a people born from hope and holy hands.
And We rise, again and again,
with our scars shaped like stars,
reminders that even in the darkest night,
we still shine.
So when they ask, what does it mean to be Black in America?
Tell them,
it means to dream beyond the visible,
to dance beyond belief,
It means to soar.
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