Last night Barack Obama become the presumptive Democratic nominee. Today I was very moved when a fellow blogger paid homage to our nation's civil rights leaders at this important milestone:
"The moment that Black people have been waiting for, dreaming of, and dying for has arrived... There is just one thing I regret about this moment and that is the ancestors are not here to experience the joy and pride we feel as a race and as a Nation, but I know that they are here in spirit... So many [people] have shed their blood and made so many sacrifices for this moment... May the Ancestors continue to watch over us."
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These powerful words flung me back to a haunting scene along the African coastline. This is what I posted in response:
Okela,When I read your reference to the Ancestors, a wave of emotion came over me and my eyes brimmed with tears. Here is something I have wanted to share with my Obama family for months now, and perhaps this is the proper, solemn occasion. In 1995, I traveled to Ghana, West Africa as part of a healthcare team serving in the poor villages where there is no doctor. We were three physicians, plus our assistant, all of us white. Here is an excerpt from my written account: * * * * * * *Finally...a day off. We travel along the coastline a few hours west of Accra until our destination, Elmina Castle, comes into view. Rising in alabaster above a palm-lined peninsula, its haunting beauty is deceptive. Elmina was a slave castle.As our tour guide explains, "The lucky ones died."We enter bleak, poorly-ventilated rooms built to store cargo. Hundreds of fearful, chained Africans were crowded into these, along with wooden buckets for their excrement. Here they were confined up to three months waiting for slave ships."That balcony is where the governor would stand to select a female captive," says the guide. "He'd drag her up those stairs and rape her." Moving on, we pass under a skull and crossbones into the condemned cell, whose pitiful dwellers suffered an agonizing death--by starvation.Perched on the second floor above, a chapel stands aloof.
With tearful eyes, I turn away, and read these words etched in marble:In everlasting memory of the anguish of our ancestors.May those who died rest in peace.May those who return find their roots.May humanity never again perpetrate such injustice upon humanity.We, the living, vow to uphold this. * * * * * * *Across the Atlantic ocean, these words grace the inside wall of a slave castle. And I wanted to share them with my black brothers and sisters on this blessed day."WE, THE LIVING, VOW TO UPHOLD THIS."Never forget that while some of your ancestors were in chains...if you go back (in time) far enough...to Africa, you are the descendants of FREE men and women.
FREE men and women. This is the legacy...this is the blessing...which Barack Obama's candidacy is bringing to all Americans. EQUALITY. FREEDOM. I embrace you! I embrace you! Welcome home.
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