It’s been so long now that I can’t recall how it all began. What I know for sure is that today I stand tall in spite of the atrocities that have beset me, and I stand as a result of my fortitude. I’d be a fool to take all the credit, because I definitely recognize that were it not for God, I’d have neither fortitude nor courage to excel past my pain. Though ever so excruciating, and of course I often question why, I know that it’s God who navigates my course. The other day you asked me, “Who do you think you are? Where’d you come from, and where do you think you’re going?” It’s to this end that I stand here today to address your query. Let me start from as far back as I can recall. I’ll bring you up to speed, so I can take you into my – no, our tomorrow. Because, as neighbors in America and cohabitants of this globe, your very own destiny is inextricably tied to mine.
Some years ago, I was snatched from my family and sold for little of nothing to a band of strange men who spoke in a foreign tongue. I was bartered for mixed goods, firearms, and ammunition. These hostile criminals took me in chains to a dungeon-like fort along the western shore. They abused and beat me before shoving my blistered and chained body down into a ship’s dank murky hold. Guilty of no crime, I lay shackled, agonizing in the cramped putrid quarters of the ship’s bowels. Any attempt to free myself or to fight back was met with malicious and often lethal blows from my kidnappers.
I filled the ships belly as starvation filled mine. My own cry and my questions ‘why’ echoed over and over again in my ear. Surrounded by the smell of my very own death, I called out to God and to whatever god that would listen but heard no answer. The hollow sound of abandonment resounded louder in my heart than the boisterous waves licking the sides of the ship. I don’t think I need to tell you that I longed for death with every shove from the billowing waves. When we finally reached the unfamiliar Eastern Shore, I was herded off the ship and placed alongside cattle for sale. And, I was sold.
Doomed, or better said, damned to perennial servitude and deprived of my personal freedom, I slaved for these strange speaking criminals from dawn to dusk year after year. I went from providing for my family back home on the other side of this nightmare, to eating animal entrails and rancid table scraps. I went from being esteemed for my strength to being disdained and beaten for my might. I once walked proud in my intellectual prowess and physical vigor, but life’s perilous twist caused me to question why God had endowed me with such potency, only to be derisively exploited by these green-eyed captors.
I was treated as a savage by the savage himself. They, both he and she, beat and bludgeoned me, violated and raped me, forced me to breed and then tore me from my children. Yet, I was the savage. Stripped, I was stripped of everything I proudly called my own; stripped of my name and language, my home and family, my culture and customs, my history and legacy, my heritage and birthright. Oh, but they gave me something, yes they did. They gave me their surnames and a glimpse of the wealth that my sweat and blood earned for them. In their arrogance, they even believed that they were doing me a favor.
Let me pause for a moment. Talking about this is conjuring up some negative feelings, that’ll only cause me to veer from the purpose of this discourse.
Thanks for bearing with me. I’ll continue now. I labored every day but Sundays, usually. Sunday was the day that all ‘good folk’ went to church. So, the ‘good folk’, they went to church and summoned me to church as well. The paradox of the day was that the ‘good folk’ committed hellish crimes against me all week, but on Sundays they sat with all piety before God, as if they themselves manufactured righteousness.
Relegated to congregating in the church yard and sometimes inside the rear of the building when permitted, I’d listen to the ‘good folk’ worship, and I too would often worship. I’d listen to the ‘good man’ preach from the Bible. All too often I was perplexed by a message that either conflicted with his way of life or propagated his odious deeds. But because I was forbidden to read his language and had no Bible in my own tongue in this foreign land, I was consigned to a distorted gospel; that is, until I learned to read his words.
Learning to read the language of the land was the defining moment in my destiny. It was then that the light came on bringing closure to the Dark Ages. Much like the repercussion in Europe initiated by Martin Luther’s protest against his contemporary Piety, the illumination instigated my longing for information and simultaneously ignited the wrath of my captors. When the light came on, I learned from the very same Bible that “There is no respect of persons with God.” I examined the Scripture for myself and received confirmation that I am a favored child of the Almighty, causing me to stand erect as the man that I am.
The rising illumination caused my ears to resonate with the sound of insurrection from my brother in the Sugar Islands. It awakened me to Dutty Boukman’s call to revolution that ignited the World War that culminated in the emancipation of my brother in Saint-Domingue. It moved me to act on my longing for freedom and equipped me with the dexterity to claim my human entitlement.
I eventually spent Sundays in my own services worshiping in a manner familiar only to me. I sang, danced, shouted and cried out to God. I beat my tambourine, slapped my thigh, stamped my feet, and hummed just about every Sunday. When my song carried over into the week, I hummed and sang hymns of freedom while I worked. Though I sang in his language, he hadn’t a clue of my words. He thought me to be ignorant. But, in his very own ignorance he mistook my song for rhythmic banter, when the song I sang was far more sophisticated and cryptic than he’d ever imagined. In fact, its encryption was as covert as any algorithmic code, securing a message solely for its intended recipient.
Like my brother in the isles of the Caribbean Sea, I sought to be free. On one day, I’d take the route of ‘by any means necessary’ and face venomous force. On another, I’d bow my knee praying for some sort of divine or benevolent rescue. And yet, on another day I’d wonder if Wilberforce would cross the ocean and protest for even me.
When Emancipation Day came, I was uncertain of my feelings. Exultant though I was, what would I do and how was I to live outside of this manacled existence? I’d been imprisoned for more than three and a half consecutive life sentences, and consequently forgot much of what freedom tasted like. But as any man would do, I stepped out into freedom, in search of independence and all that it embodies.
With courage pounding in my chest, relief on my back, and the currency in my pocket – my mother’s prayers, I got up and walked out of slavery past the dogs that he unleashed on me to tear my flesh. I walked past nooses purposely sanctioned for the breaking of my neck. I pushed my way through the bone crushing force of his water cannons. I stepped over the debris left in the wake of bombs that he hurled through my windows. I walked out of the fires that he ignited to annihilate me. I made it through that wretched day that he beat the breath from my youthful lungs because I but whistled. Till…even the world felt the pain of my mutilated body. I walked forward with hand in pocket clasping my change, knowing that I’d need it in order to make a dollar out of fifteen cents.
Now I stand before you today, an accomplished man with far more yet to achieve. I stand as a man historically beaten, but perpetually undefeated. I walk as a man hindered but unstopped. In spite of his extrajudicial bullets that penetrate my back, I live as a man excelling in all that I undertake. I rise. And as I rise in my Father’s strength, I lift my siblings and my mother, and I honor my Father.
Don’t stand on the sidelines gazing. Get in sync or be swept away in the wake of my success. Walk with me, for my quest is excellence. Work with me, and let us celebrate ground-breaking exploits and noble feats together. Kneel alongside me, and fill your own pocket with the divine currency that has sustained and still propels me. But waste time begrudging me, and I’ll simply watch you in life’s rear-view mirror as I continue to innovate, develop, and create,
So you want to know who I am? You ask my name and deliberate my accomplishment. There’s plenty time left for roll call…roll call of esteemed individuals in the realm of Blackdom… Your name is among them, along with your sons’ names, and your daughters’ names, and the names of their children, and so on.