In honor of those of us (our ancestors) individually and collectively, who were taken from Africa to be brought to the Americas, let us center ourselves and with focused purpose recognize them. We honor the millions of named and unnamed mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, who were separated from their homeland, culture and language. To those who did not survive the "middle passage" across the Atlantic ocean, due to the crass inhumanity, raw brutality, and the heartlessness of their captors, to those who were killed in attempts to free themselves and return home, to those who died from sickness or fear, and heart break, let us recognize and honor them solemnly with purpose. Let us recognize and know that as our ancestors are a essential part of our past, and they remain a vial part of our present and and future.
In honor of those Africans who survived the "middle passage" and arrived in the Americas, let us honor them individually and collectively recognizing the deliberate and inhumane, physical, psychological, spiritual treatment they (we) constantly endured being violated as if we were less than human beings for many generations and centuries and yet survived and overcame this shameless brutality. Let us recognize their (our) constant fight, resistance, and many victories in overcoming this treatment and our ongoing self-healing into whole, honorable, respected, talented, and prosperous men, women and families.
In honor of our mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters who day to day, then and now, do the seemingly mundane to maintain self, and create a sense of connection and family between us; who protect themselves and earn respect in the face of gross inhumanity and disrespect while recovering, restoring, redefining, recreating and sustaining a unique and fundamentally African culture here in the Americas. Individually and collectively we honor our ancestors.
In honor of those of our ancestors, individually and collectively, who accomplished great things in the endeavors of humanity; family, science, education, theology, leadership, the arts, athletics and more, pushing through, past, and over sub-human designations, enslavement, discrimination, injustice and physical and psychological oppression such that our experiences and hard fought victories defined freedom itself in the United States and in the world and further defined American culture as unique, dynamic and desirable across the world. We recognize and sacredly value the legacy of these, our African ancestors and their struggle advancement and great accomplishments in the United States and the Americas.
Captive in a culture of inhumanity, oppression, and enslavement, that held Africans as socially and legally less than human required that we constantly work to protect ourselves and our relationships to each other, that we lift our own humanity in every way possible. We and our ancestors did and do these things as Africans, this is the only way we could possibly be human in the face of inhumanity. In our families, in our spiritual lives in our cultural expression and in our souls our humanity is expressed through being fundamentally African in the heart of America. So with pride in our own selves individually and our own people collectively, across the African diaspora, WE HONOR OUR ANCESTORS we honor our ancestors, their work, their wisdom and accomplishments for sustaining our humanity as Africans in the Americas. We also commit ourselves to continuously honoring our ancestors and to sustaining our humanity as Africans in the Americas and the world.
Captive in a culture of inhumanity, oppression, and enslavement, that held Africans as socially and legally less than human required that we constantly work to protect ourselves and our relationships to each other, that we lift our own humanity in every way possible. We and our ancestors did and do these things as Africans, this is the only way we could possibly be human in the face of inhumanity. In our families, in our spiritual lives in our cultural expression and in our souls our humanity is expressed through being fundamentally African in the heart of America. So with pride in our own selves individually and our own people collectively, across the African diaspora, WE HONOR OUR ANCESTORS we honor our ancestors, their work, their wisdom and accomplishments for sustaining our humanity as Africans in the Americas. We also commit ourselves to continuously honoring our ancestors and to sustaining our humanity as Africans in the Americas and the world.
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