By Lou Yeboah
I
am a Harriet Tubman, a Sojourner Truth, a Fannie Lou Hamer, a Rosa Parks, a Zora
Neale Hurston, a Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a Maya Angelou, a Mary McLeod Bethune, a
Elma Lewis, a Wangari Muta Maathai, a Meta Warrick Fuller, a Dr. Jane Cooke
Wright, a Septima Poinsette Clark, a Madame C.J. Walker, a Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf, a Bessie Coleman, a Deratu Tulu, a Zora Neale Hurston, a Charlotte E.
Ray, a Maritza Correia, a Mary Church Terrell, a Coretta Scott King, a Flo
Kennedy, a Katherine Johnson, a Gwendolyn Brooks, a Mary Mahoney, a Octavia E.
Butler, a Shirley Chisholmand, a Tegla Laroupe, and a Josephine Baker. Oh, Yes
I am!
I
am a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Malcolm
X, a Frederick Douglass, a Nelson Mandela, a Booker T. Washington, a W.E.B.
DuBois, a Benjamin Banneker, a Louis
Armstrong, a Duke Ellington, a Paul Robeson, a Jackie Robinson, a Howard
Thurman, a Langston Hughes, a Ralph Ellison, a Richard Wright, a James Baldwin,
a Kofi Annan, a Romare Bearden, a Imhotep, a Bob Moses, a Desmond Tutu, a
Toussaint Louverture, a Lewis Latimer, a Joe Louis, a Muhammad Ali, a Hank Aaron, and a Jesse Owens. Oh, Yes I am!
What
makes me all of them: We are all co-heirs with Jesus, sons and daughters of the
promise given to our father Abraham. And, because, “I am my mother’s daughter,
and the drums of Africa still beat in my heart.” [African proverb] [Mary McLeod
Bethune].
No
matter who we are, where we live, or what our goals may be, we all have one
thing in common: a heritage. That is, a social and spiritual legacy passed on
from one generation to another. Every one of us is passed a heritage, lives out
a heritage, and gives a heritage to our family. Consider our LEGACY and the
legacy of others. What do we leave behind? And what do we do with what is left
to us? What impact will our life have on those around us? What will your legacy
be? Our legacy be?
As
we celebrate our history let it remind us that empowered by God as they were,
we can continue their work and likewise pass down legacies of strength,
perseverance, faith, and victory to future generations. When I think about my
ancestors, and when I think about how they lived their lives and followed God.
They continue to impact my life as a heritage of faith that is worth following.
For God has established his testimony in Jacob, he’s established his Law, his
Word in Israel, and it’s each generation’s job to make sure the next generation
gets it, that they would know God, that they would put their hope in God, and
learn how to walk with God. That’s each generation’s responsibility toward the
next.
In
concluding, as Joshua Pawelek, a Unitarian Universalist minister, wrote: I
believe it is a sign of spiritual health when we practice remembering and
honoring those upon whose shoulders we rest. I believe it is a path to
spiritual wisdom when we seek to know our ancestors’ stories. What obstacles
did they face? If they were enslaved, how did they achieve liberation? If they
wandered in the wilderness, how did they survive? What was their relationship
to the Most Holy? For what were they thankful? What did they pass on to us? As we know more clearly who our ancestors
were, we know more clearly who we are. May
we remember and honor the ancestors, whether those we were born into or those
in which we were adopted, and to all those who gifted us with something of
value.
“Bringing
the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise.
I rise. I rise.”
[Maya
Angelou, from “Still I Rise”]
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