1 – Of A Series
CHAPTER & VERSE
In the Beginning was the Word! And the Word took unto itself Flesh, and Became a Living Human Being: – Male & Female!
THE GOLDEN RULE
Literate or Illiterate – Learn to Read & Write to be Right. Unlike magic, It will not be achieved overnight. Remove the darkness, come into the light. Get to know!
Free yourself into mental independence, and from psychological enslavement. You can do it.
Starting from right now, right here! Within the written and spoken words, of all the greats who paved the way before us.
WORDS – SPOKEN & WRITTEN
“If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.
Love is never any better than the lover -Beloved.
I’m writing for Black people, in the same way that Tolstoy was not writing for me, a 14 year old coloured girl, from Lorain, Ohio.”
“Nobody can do for little children, what grandmothers do. In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.
To the best of my knowledge, and of my effort. Every lineage statement within Roots, is either my African or American family, carefully preserved oral history.”
Griots – Oral Historians, are trained from childhood, to memorise and recite the history of a particular village, or region.
“Racism is not automatic, it is taught in our society.”
MAYA ANGELOU
“My mission in life is not merely survival, but to thrive, and do so with some passion, some compassion, some humour, and some style. One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous or honest.”
“Try to be a rainbow, in someone’s cloud. If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die. I’ve learned that making a living, is not the same thing, as making a life. You may not control all the events, that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
WALTER MOSLEY
“We re not trapped or locked up in these bones. No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us. And if we can love one another, we break open the sky.
Our collective freedom, depends on our ability, to defend the right of others. The life most of us live, are lives we are forced to live by immediate needs, influences, and pressures.”
“Writing is almost a place of dreams for me, and I didn’t have to give up anything to do it. Sometimes, the one who is running the fastest, is the one with most fear.”
“These short stories are vast structures existing mostly in the subconscious of our cultural history. They will live with the reader long after the words have been translated into ideas and dreams.”
ZORA NEALE HURSTON
“I am coloured, but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances, except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States, whose grandfather on the mother’s side was not an Indian chief.”
“I remember the very day that I became colored. Up to my thirteenth year I lived in the little Negro town of Eatonville, Florida. It is exclusively a colored town. The only white people I knew, passed through the town going to or coming from Orlando.
The native whites rode dusty horses, the Northern tourists chugged down the sandy village road in automobiles. The town knew the Southerners, and never stopped cane chewing when they passed.
But the Northerners were something else again. They were peered at cautiously from behind curtains by the timid. The more venturesome would come out on the porch to watch them go past, and got just as much pleasure out of the tourists, as the tourists got out of the village.”
THE KING OF KINGS
“That he is human, and living
And of our time
Makes it seem a miracle
All the more sublime
That he becomes a symbol
Of our Negritude,
Our dignity…and food.
On which men who are neither
King of Kings nor Lions of Judah
Yet may feel their pride…
And live to hope for that great day
When all mankind is one.
And each king in common
Of all his eyes survey,
And each man shares
The strength derived from head held high…
And holds his head, King of Kings…
Our symbol of a dream
That will not die.”
“One of the great needs of Negro children, is to have books about themselves and their lives, that can help them be proud.” TEAM-ACAP
PHILLIS WHEATLEY
“Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.”
“In every beast, God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom;
It is impatient of oppression, and pants for deliverance.”
“Some view our sable race with scornful eye, their colour is a diabolic die! We may be refined and join th’ angelic train.” TEAM ACAP.
CLAUDE McKAY
“If we must die, let it be not like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!”
“Upon the clothes behind the tenement, That hang like ghosts suspended from the lines,
Linking each flat, but to each indifferent, Incongruous and strange the moonlight shines.” TEAM ACAP.