Twin Poets headline SDARJ Black History Month event

The Twin Poets took the breath out of the Epworth United Methodist Church room, the people in the pews taking in each of their powerful, rhythmic lines, and erupting into applause and praise after the “thank you” signifying each poem’s end.

Twin brothers Al Mills and Nnamdi Chukwuocha, known as the Twin Poets, are social workers, elected officials and spoken-word poets who were appointed as the 17th Poets Laureate of Delaware. They promote poetry throughout the state by introducing it into schools, community centers, detention centers and communities affected by gun violence.

The duo headlined the Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice’s Black History Month event Feb. 28, sharing poems they wrote about both their own experiences as Black men in America, and the stories of those around them, particularly Black youth living in inner-city Wilmington.

“My mind replays what my heart can’t delete,” the twins read. “I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I just keep seeing my brother there, lying in the streets.” 

The duo wrote the poem, titled “Tuesday’s Trauma,” for a little girl named Madeline, from west Wilmington, who used to come to their writing workshops and was the life and joy of the program – until she lost her older brother to gun violence a few years ago. He was killed on the same street as her school bus stop, just one block down. 

“Every day, she was revisited by the trauma of her brother’s death,” Mills said. “She stopped writing, stopped coming to the poetry group, stopped going to school.” 

The poem continued: “I know as an honor roll student I’m supposed to be stronger than this, but as my smiles disappeared, so did my strength. But they want me to show up to school like everything’s cool. But my bus stop is right up the block from where my brother was shot. So by the time we get there, I’m just not in the mood. And no matter what they say, they’re just gonna light up my fuse. So I’m staying home again, another day unexcused. See, things have been wrong for so long, I doubt they will ever get right. See, this is the impact that gun violence has on my life.”

The twins shared several more poems like these, highlighting the deep pain that so many Black Americans face. 

Ayeronna Hudson, a 17-year-old Cape senior, also spoke at the event, underscoring that the fight for racial equality has not yet been won.

“The importance of Black history is an understanding that the fight is ongoing, and that we all have a part to play in moving this world forward,” Hudson said. “It’s not just about celebrating the famous names; it’s also about recognizing the unsung heroes too. It’s about the teacher who works tirelessly in [underfunded] schools to make sure Black children know their worth. It’s the mother who sacrifices so much to make sure her children can dream big. It’s the young people like me who are speaking for justice and change, and who are standing up for what’s right, even when it’s hard.”

Other speakers and performers at the event included the Alliance Singers of CAMP Rehoboth, the Praise Choir of Lewes Friendship Baptist Church, a hop team from the Psi Iota Chapter of Omega Psi Phi, Bryan Allen Stevenson School of Excellence seventh-grader David Point-Dujour, performance artist RogJenéa Fisher, SDARJ founder Charlotte King, Gwendolyn Miller, Don Peterson, the Rev. Tony Neal and Joseph Lawson.

“When our forefathers and mothers would hear such words like racism, they would run,” said Fisher. “When they heard the word segregation, they would run. When they heard lynching, they would run. Hatred, they would run, run, run, run. But, as I stand here today, my generation is simply out of breath. We aren’t running anymore. We will walk, because you only run when you’re scared.”

Nearly 65 years ago, Fisher continued, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. urged people to walk through racism and segregation. 

“He pressed us to recognize the fierce urgency of now,” Fisher said. “He said there is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or taking the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.”

As she addressed the audience, she urged everyone to come together and walk, not run, to face racism head-on.

“We must stand the flow of multifaceted losses inflicted on Black Americans by overt and systemic racism,” Fisher said. “Stand and be steadfast.”

“When the world tries to make you feel small, remember, your ancestors stood, and they stood tall,” Hudson added. “I wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t be me, if it weren’t for the shoulders of giants who carried me. Black history is now. It’s always been. It’s not just a lesson, it's the heart within.”