The footprints of our culture continue to cross boundaries, brought here from Africa and placed into slavery. In 1619, the first African slaves arrived in Virginia. Many years of racism, segregation, and hatred followed. The whips on our back, the cries on our lips. Black women raped and the men often killed. Children separated from their families and sold off like cattle; these are the things that are ingrained in our history.
The victories did come and are as followed: Nat Turner, an enslaved African-American preacher, lead the most significant slave uprising in American history in 1831. On July 2, 1839, 53 African slaves on board the slave ship the Amistad revolted against their captors, killing all but the ship's navigator, who sailed them to Long Island, N.Y., instead of their intended destination, Africa.
In 1849, Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery and becomes one of the most effective and celebrated leaders of the Underground Railroad. In 1870, Blacks were given the right to vote. In 1909, the NAACP was born. In 1955, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" and in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream that one day we will not be judged by the color of our skin, but the content of our character. In 2001, Colin Powell becomes the first African American U.S. Secretary of State and in 2005, Condoleezza Rice becomes the first Black female U.S. Secretary of State. Barack Obama was the first Black president to serve office. Our Black history is one to be celebrated, a symbol of independence and resistance against oppression.
Stokley Carmichael reminds us that even though our noses are broad and our lips thick, we are Black and beautiful. Martin Luther King Jr said that “Somebody told a lie one day. They couched it in language. They made everything black ugly and evil. Look in your dictionary and see the synonyms of the word “black”. It’s always something degrading, low and sinister. Look at the word “white”. It’s always something pure, high, clean. Well, I wanna get the language right tonight. I wanna get the language so right that everybody here will cry out “Yes I’m black! I’m proud of it! I’m black and beautiful!”
