For All My Brothers and Sisters

To all my brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, I say, “thank you.”

To the mighty Kings of Africa for your dignity, strength, courage and wisdom, to govern a great land, to bring forth from the beginnings of history a people who despite everything remain mighty, remembering the glory of Warrior Kings like Hannibal, riding through the alps on elephants, remembering the military innovations of Shaka Zulu, uniting his people to fight against colonialism, remembering the vast vistas of the homeland we were stolen from, we, who are your children from generation to generation, I say, “thank you.”

To the slave who was beaten, raped, ripped from the arms of family never to see them again, so down trodden that even the glimmer of the idea of freedom was beyond them, knowing what perseverance meant even though it was against the law to be taught to read or write, escaping North to freedom and finding that freedom had a price, staying South birthing children to slavery, outliving slavery’s chains and doing it all with dignity, strength, courage and wisdom, I say, “thank you.”

To the freeman who was displaced, hung from trees, set on fire, raped, refused the right to vote, the right to justice, the right to drink water from the same fountain as any another man, or use a gas station rest room, the right to a decent job, a decent wage, a decent home, the right to govern his own life and the life of his family, the right to consider himself a man, equal to any man, withstanding the KKK and their burning crosses and threats every time he dared to succeed, enduring every hateful word and fist with dignity, strength, courage and wisdom, I say, “thank you.”

You are the building blocks on which we stand and I say, “thank you.”
Thank you and bless you for the blood which flows through my veins.
Your blood; the blood of survivors, strivers and believers of dreams
Thank you and bless you for teaching me that there is nothing that I cannot and will not survive.

To all my brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, I say, “thank you.”

To the older men and women who were the first of their generation to have children who graduated from high schools and colleges, while working menial jobs as maids, janitors and chauffeurs, though they had the skills and intelligence to be so much more, but were denied it on the basis of their skin color. These looked to the future from the floors that they scrubbed on their knees or from the front seats of cars they wouldn’t be allowed to own and dreamed dreams that only a few short generations past were impossible. To these I say, “thank you.”

To the men and women who were the first of their generation to be allowed the freedoms which others fought and died for; becoming lawyers, doctors, professors, writers, artists, musicians, giving the world light out of darkness, dreaming dreams and dying for them, advising presidents, becoming generals, world leaders, innovators in science, medicine and technology, running businesses and knocking down doors which had been shut to them for generations, yet who never forgot where they came from, I say, “thank you.”

To the young men and women who are the future dreamers of dreams, remember those who came before you, there are many lessons to be learned from the past, it isn’t dry history, it is the heart’s blood of your family and mine. Find new ways to give those Old Ones reasons to be proud of their struggles. Remember that you are Men and Women descended from greatness. The greatness of a mighty people who survived the atrocity of slavery for over four hundred years and came out of it powerful, unstoppable and strong. I say, “thank you,” in advance.

You will achieve greatness.

Because you are the future and the future is a boundless, colossal thing.

Embrace it young men and young women. Embrace it with the dignity, strength, courage and wisdom of past generations. Know that the same blood flows through you as through those great ones and learn from them.

You will survive anything.

The ignorance of those who hate you, the ignorance of those who think they can define you, the ignorance of those who feel it is their place to tell you what rights you have to think and feel and live as you wish to.

You will rise above them, because you will rise above anything.
I say, ‘thank you,” now because
I may not be there to see all that you will do, but
I know that you will be wondrous.

To all generations
from the past to the present and beyond,
I say, “thank you.”
Thank you for all you were, all you are and for all you are yet to be.

Amen.