The combined salaries were nothing to boast about, yet enough to survive on, and much more than was earned by the typical Southern Black family. My mother who, like my father, came from a very humble background, also worked her way through college and got a job teaching in the Birmingham elementary school system. So, with his meager savings he began to buy a service station in the Black section of downtown Birmingham. But life was especially difficult during those years his salary was as close to nothing as money could be. Augustine’s in Raleigh, North Carolina, to secure a position teaching history at Parker High School. Before I was born, my father had taken advantage of his hard-earned college degree, from St. The family income was earned by both my mother and father. When holes began to wear through the soles of my shoes, although I may have worn them with pasteboard for a short time, we eventually went downtown to select a new pair. I had summer clothes and winter clothes, everyday dresses and a few “Sunday” dresses. Until my experiences at school, I believed that everyone else lived the way we did. "This was my first introduction to class differences among my own people. Song for reflection: We’re a Winner, Curtis Mayfield To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together. They did not ask to be accepted but declared themselves the Americans that perhaps few others recognized but that they had always been deep within their hearts." By their actions, they did not dream the American Dream, they willed it into being by a definition of their own choosing. Perhaps it is not a question of whether the migrants brought good or ill to the cities they fled or were pushed or pulled to their destinations, but a question of how they summoned the courage to leave in the first place or how they found the will to press beyond the forces against them and the faith in a country that had rejected them for so long. "Over the decades, perhaps the wrong questions have been asked about the Great Migration. Song for reflection: Optimistic, Sounds of Blackness To build and maintain our community together and make our community’s problems our problems and to solve them together. Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. The dark, dark liver-love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. So love your neck put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And o my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. Feet that need to rest and to dance backs that need support shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you say out of it they will not heed. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ‘cause they don’t love that either. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. And O my people they do not love your hands. No more do they love the skin on your back. They don’t love your eyes they’d just as soon pluck em out. “Here,” she said, “in this here place, we flesh: flesh that weeps, laughs flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. 88īaby Suggs (holy) gives a sermon in the Clearing: Song for reflection: Worth His Weight in Gold (Rally Round the Flag), Steel Pulse To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race. These colors were first proclaimed to be the colors for all people of the African diaspora by Marcus Garvey. One might also see the colors of the Pan-African flag, red (the struggle), black (the people), and green (the future), represented throughout the space and in the clothing worn by participants. The table is decorated with the essential symbols of Kwanzaa, such as the Kinara (Candle Holder), Mkeka (Mat), Muhindi (corn to represent the children), Mazao (fruit to represent the harvest), and Zawadi (gifts). Each day they light a candle to highlight the principle of that day and to breathe meaning into the principles with various activities, such as reciting the sayings or writings of great black thinkers and writers, reciting original poetry, African drumming, and sharing a meal of African diaspora-inspired foods. Kwanzaa is a time of learning, family and celebration.ĭuring the week of Kwanzaa, families and communities come together to share a feast, to honor the ancestors, affirm the bonds between them, and to celebrate African and African American culture.
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