One month before Martin Luther King Day, I left the cold, clouded skies of New Hampshire for the heat and blinding sun of the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire. I left behind the cold case of Nickenley Turenne, a young man killed by Manchester police on Dec. 6 after they found him asleep in his car and gunned him down as he tried to flee.

One of my daughters, a professional scuba diver in Bonaire, wished to gift her niece, my granddaughter, the opportunity to earn her open dive certification so she could experience the beauty of the island’s marine life. My granddaughter packed a book I had given her, “The Devil’s Half Acre” by Kristen Green on the history of the American slave trade. Born in 1832 and enslaved by a brutal trader, Mary Lumpkin lived at his Richmond, Va. slave jail. In this destitute setting, she eventually freed herself and her children, inherited her husband’s jail and transformed it into “God’s Half Acre,” a school to educate Black students. It exists today as Virginia Union University, one of the first Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

In 1854, an enslaved man named Anthony Burns had escaped Richmond only to be captured in Boston and delivered south to said Lumpkin’s jail in accordance with the Fugitive Slave Act. Though a warrant for his arrest was secured, Boston had an extensive network of free Black people, white abolitionists and the Boston Vigilance Committee to protect fugitives. Neither the fliers they plastered (“The Kidnappers are Here!”) nor the 5,000 supporters gathered at the courthouse crying “Rescue him!” were enough to save Burns who was told, “You must go back. There isn’t humanity, there isn’t Christianity, there isn’t justice enough here to save you; you must go back.”

I read avidly, seated at the site of the “slaves cabins” on Bonaire Island, “kasnan di katibu” in Papiamentu, the Bonairian language, where from the 1600s to the 1800s a notorious slave trade flourished under Dutch rule. Considered government property the enslaved labored in the saltpans — vast, pink hued pools where seawater evaporated leaving behind crystallized salt they broke up with pickaxes and shovels, then carried further onto the beach for export. 

The plaque near the huts, far from being historically accurate, reads like a romanticized story with no names and no mention of the violent conditions endured under the blazing sun or the Dutch role in Atlantic slavery. According to Dutch historian, Anne van Mourik, “The information provided at significant historical sites is not only lacking and outdated. It often manipulates history by sanitizing it, without perpetrators, only faceless victims … It suggests that Bonaire’s colonial past has faded into obscurity, as if it has been forgotten or worse, that it does not matter.”

The belief that Black people, at best, hold little significance or, at worst, are expendable has been loudly countered by the Black Lives Matter slogan “say their names.” Anthony Poore, president and CEO of the NH Center for Justice and Equity, and Tanisha Johnson, executive directive of Black Lives Matter, NH, released the following statement in response to the dehumanizing conduct by police who, unprovoked and without evidence, assumed Nickenley Turrene to be a dangerous criminal:

“We must continue the conversations that will result in rejecting the narratives that continue to criminalize Black existence. It is not a crime to be unhoused. It is not a crime to sleep in a car. These are conditions created by systemic failures, not individual wrongdoing. Responding to police presence with fear is not irrational or suspicious. It is a survival response shaped by generations of racial profiling, over policing, and violence against Black communities. No nonviolent behavior, no perceived noncompliance, and no expression of fear should result in death.”

When time and space collapse, we continue to feel the effects of the Fugitive Slave Act in our current overpolicing and the frightened response of those like Burns and Turenne running for freedom as a perpetual threat punishable by death.

Ultimately, Bonaire is a stark contrast between privilege and poverty. The Dutch continue to profit from a luxurious lifestyle while Bonairians, descendants of former slaves, live as lower class citizens in shacks without electricity or running water. I, older and grey, and my granddaughter, young and Black, leave the island with contrasting memories. She has thoroughly enjoyed swimming peacefully beside turtles and pods of dolphins undisturbed in calm waters. On land, however, the turbulence of an intolerant world remains ever present. 

As we return home to honor MLK Day, we’re reminded of the painfully slow progress toward equity and justice. Tragically, in the case of Nick Turenne and countless others, “there was no justice enough to save him.” And in the words of Martin Luther King, until that day comes, “justice delayed is justice denied.”

Ann Podlipny lives in Chester.