OPINION: These were my people; this is our history

When I consider the lives of Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, T.R.M. Howard, and others whom I knew, I am appreciative because THESE WERE MY PEOPLE, standing as giants leading us through the Civil Rights Movement.

As the Black Power Movement took root and black was acknowledged as beautiful, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Imari Obadele, and Black caucuses and additional Black officeholders sprang up here and around the country. I was again proud because THESE WERE MY PEOPLE.

They came after Emmett Till, Rev. George Lee, Vernon Dahmer, James Chaney, and other Black people who had been lynched or otherwise sacrificed for our advancement. I mourned for those victims; I am a part of them. THESE WERE MY PEOPLE. 

Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Ida B. Wells had all sought ways to advance Black people long before the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. We internalized their wisdom. THESE WERE MY PEOPLE.

Yes, each generation of Black people has reacted to the racial oppression and segregation they’ve faced since Europeans first bought, captured, and kidnapped them from Africa; each has sought freedom, equality, and prosperity, MY PEOPLE.

All the slaves who suffered during the middle passage, on plantations, or otherwise were MY PEOPLE. All the Black people denied decent paying jobs, housing, and professional training; those barred from schools, hotels, restaurants, and hospitals – places of service and accommodations – were MY PEOPLE. 

Toussaint L’Ouverture, Cinque, Charles Deslondes, Cato, Nat Turner, and other slave revolt leaders; Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and others who supported run-away slaves are sources of pride to me because THESE WERE MY PEOPLE.

Aside from the freedom-fighters, hundreds of African Americans, such as inventor Garrett Morgan, mathematician Katherine Johnson, physician Daniel Hale Williams, historian Carter G. Woodson, and the multi-talented Mae Jemison and Paul Robeson, used their knowledge and skills to develop America, but had to await their revelations during Negro History Week programs. THESE WERE MY PEOPLE.

Among the earliest non-Native settlers in Florida, Los Angeles, Chicago, and the state of Washington were MY PEOPLE. They often escaped to, lived among, and fought with tribes like the Seminoles. An even more familiar story is that to demonstrate their bravery and loyalty to America, MY PEOPLE have fought and died in every American war from the Revolution to Afghanistan.

Fully 10 generations of African Americans, enslaved and otherwise, were all MY PEOPLE. 

Before them, however, there was Aesop, Hannibal, Candace, Imhotep, Makeda, Akhenaten, and other leaders and achievers; before them were our gifted ancestors in Egypt, Mali, Zimbabwe, Azania, Ethiopia, and elsewhere in Africa. They had skills and intellect; they were capable and competent. THESE, TOO, WERE MY PEOPLE. 

What these Africans accomplished was hidden, stolen, and plundered by Europeans, as they attempted to justify calling Africa “the Dark Continent.” 

We must lift up all our ancestors from Africa and the African diaspora whose places in history cannot be erased nor our link to them denied. WE ARE AN AFRICAN PEOPLE. 

Finally, as history and science inform us, east Africa is the home of the original human beings. I am proud of and can relate to these first humans because as quietly as it is kept, THESE TOO WERE MY PEOPLE. We must continue their remarkable story, and despite the intervention of slavery and other forms of oppression, reach our destiny as God’s ultimate creation. WE ARE HIS PEOPLE.