2.png)
As we prepare to celebrate African American History Month, formerly Black History Month and Negro History Month, a recent trip to Ghana with Disciples Global Ministries and Lexington Theological Seminary, a visit to the African American History Museum in Washington DC, and conversations with my mom, Eva Horton, are with me as I write this reflection. Ghana reminded me of the distance we have travelled as descendants of enslaved people and the distance that was manufactured between African peoples and African Americans whose lives were forever disrupted by the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
The visit to the African American History Museum reminded me that African American History Month is a time to remember the Mayflower, which brought men and women fleeing persecution from a king in England to the shores of Cape Cod in 1620, and acknowledge the existence of the White Lion, which arrived in 1619 with Africans from Angola. As I moved from one level of the museum to the next, I celebrated that I contain genetic instructions for resilience, courage, ingenuity, beauty, determination, persistence, and faith. My conversations with my mother reminded me that in her genetic code she carries the hopes and dreams of people from Shannon, Mississippi who understood share cropping, Jim and Jane Crow, and the pain of the song “Strange Fruit” sung by Billie Holiday and written by Abel Meeropol and who were part of the great migration north.
Thus, African American History Month is a corporate and personal recognition and celebration of African American achievements and a necessary reminder that people I love and know have lived this history in dark and painful ways. The people of God have lived this history in dark and painful ways. I am reminded that the elders/ancestors have gone on to be a part of the great cloud of witnesses. We as people of faith have depended upon the God of our ancestors to light a path to freedom and the God of our hopes to make a way out of no way.
I contend that with such a resilient genetic code, we must understand that contrary to the textbooks Black history is much more than a shallow overview of the conditions of slavery and emancipation. It is a commemoration of how we Blacks are an integral part of the fabric of this nation. I further assert:
African American History Month is the celebration of African Kings and Queens and their descendants who refused to accept as destiny a life and history of death.
African American History Month is a reminder to us that God expects more from us. God expects us to do more than say we will walk humbly with God. God expects us to do mercy, to do justice, to be humble in our thoughts and action towards those we see as we profess love for a God we do not see.
African American History Month is a call to action and a reminder we are all God’s children in heaven and on earth, and we were birthed with resilient genes. Even in dark and painful times, the light always will shine. May it be so not just for the day but also for every day we breathe.
Rev. Dr. Donald K. Gillett, II is the Regional Minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Kentucky. He is father to Jeremy, Liyah, Taisa, and Trey and grandfather to Jayda. He is married to Dr. Charisse L. Gillett, President of Lexington Theological Seminary.
Comments