Gibbs Magazine
"And this is also a history that obligates me and every African American alive to return and build a legacy of returning to a community that has a long history of giving back and giving itself for others who are without strength."
"I stand on the backs and bodies of black people who have paid dearly for my entrance; and I am on the shoulders of my parents, who worked harder than normal for my opportunities; and I am also on the shoulders of all of those who have had to bow their heads to heads not worthy of them."
A Loss of Historical Memory:
Some consequences and Concerns
(Continued)
The judge was not above or beyond his community and its afflictions. He knew that he owed an obligation to help, to use his position as legitimately as he could to help a people with whom he identified and knew he was a part of, regardless of how far he had come.
He called 50 prominent black citizens together, and we met for six weeks discussing the issue and ways to approach it. From that beginning, we started actions that are ongoing today. And from some of those actions was born the Gibbs Community Foundation, as an offshoot.
At that time, I had taken several degrees from three universities. While studying, there was no one but me. By my long hours of painful study, and by my intellectual power, I forced the halls of academia to allow me into their scholarly club. The black community was not there with me; I did it myself! Or, did I? The answer is unambiguously, NO! I did not do it myself.
My very entrance into those large, prestigious institutions was the result of help I received—of course, once in the institution, I had to go it alone. But had it not been for the struggles of black people whom I never knew personally, the doors of those institutions would be closed to me even today.
Martin Luther King, Jr., noted that the privileged do not give up their privileged position easily, it must be demanded. And all those who have struggled for freedom and dignity know the statements of Malcolm X, Huey Newton, and others: "Power concedes to power, only upon demand."
When blacks were completely shut out of the systems of this society, for which their dollars were being taken to support, the demand was made on privileged power by educated and uneducated black people I didn't know. And that demand resulted in many of them spending years in prison, their families being killed, and many of their lives were taken.
They did not personally know me, but they knew that I was shut out of the system. They knew that little black children in Louisiana, in Mississippi, in California and New York, and across this Nation were being harmed; they knew that those children had minds that would shine, were they given the same chance, not a greater one, that little white children were being given. Those black people paid a dear and personal price for me and for all other blacks now enjoying positions of education, power, influence, and wealth. That is a history I am proud of, not ashamed of! And this is also a history that obligates me and every African American alive to return and build a legacy of returning to a community that has a long history of giving back and giving itself for others who are without strength.
During my education and on all jobs I have held, I have always been cognizant that my opportunity was the result of others. I stand on the backs and bodies of black people who have paid dearly for my entrance; and I am on the shoulders of my parents, who worked harder than normal for my opportunities; and I am also on the shoulders of all of those who have had to bow their heads to heads not worthy of them.
I had to master the challenges that the fought-for opportunities brought me--each person has to individually master the responsibilities set before him/her. But doing it all myself—no, I didn't do it by myself. No African American does. The chain of causation between those blacks who paid so dearly for the opportunities and rights I presently exercise still remains intact.
This generation, with its vast wealth and prominence, can terminate the chain that binds us to that obligatory history only if it develops new initiatives that supplant the old ones. For African Americans to sever the links of obligations, actions must be taken that supplant those obligations. Just as the Civil Rights movement supplanted the Freedom Movement, each generation must make its mark, supplanting the past.
There can be no simple disavowal of one's past without an acquitting of oneself. To simply adopt the destructive notion that we should separate ourselves from our history is a mistake concocted to render harm to a people already harmed. It is this anomalous acceptance of a flawed philosophy that has taken root in many blacks who have risen to their positions without a regard for the pioneering work of many black people gone before them.
Too many in positions to return back to the community, without endangering or violating their positions, seemingly prefer to disavow any obligation the African Americans’ Civil Rights struggle claims on them. Sadly, the actions they will not take to assist blacks, they gleefully take to assist others. This behavior is not, however, a new anomaly; our fore-parents who struggled for our freedom knew about it, but being in the throes of the battle, they were powerless to address it during their time. Yet, it is an issue that must be focused on and corrected today. Black History Month is an ideal time to start addressing the obligation we have to each other.
The story of Esther is an appropriate analogy to bring this discussion to closure. Esther was the wife of King Ahasuerus, who ruled a kingdom that spanned from India to Ethiopia. Unaware of the plotting of evil Haman, the King had unwittingly signed a decree that would kill all Jews, confiscate their property, and also touch the very King’s household. Insulated in the King’s house, Esther felt no personal harm and did not considered any obligation she had to the Jews because of her Jewish heritage. But her uncle, Mordecai, petitioned her to help save her people. And in that petition, he issued a warning: if she did not help, help would, nevertheless, come from another source, but she would be without help.
If those who have risen to positions of influence now disavow their obligation to return back to the community, or have not recognized any obligation to share with their community, that community will find help from other sources. It could be, however, that some day, those now in positions to return and assist their community, and do not, may need the help of that community they have not now regarded.[]
