As we engage in a continuing struggle to decipher the place of African Americans in this confused and conflicted land, as we try to find some sense in the senselessness of racial conflict, as we once again try out the power of mass protest, we offer words from the brilliant Alice Walker:
What always struck me about Martin Luther King when I was a student in high school and he was just beginning his charge against the dictatorship of White Supremacy in our country was that he seemed to know us, people of color, so well. What we really, in our heart of hearts, were like. And he accepted us for what we were. I want to visit India to see what it was that Gandhi loved, understood, and accepted about Indians—so much so that he endangered his life to live among them and to teach and lead. That King thought us worthy of any sacrifice was clear to me as a student, and moved me to tears. How does he know? I wondered. How does he continue to believe in us? Who are we, after all? After four hundred years of slavery and post-enslavement degradation, we were, far too many of us, quite a wreck. But with those extraordinarily wise eyes of his, he saw us beyond our wreckage and with compassion held us dear. Knowing the divine within himself, he saw it in us.
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Denene Millner
Mom. NY Times bestselling author. Pop culture ninja. Unapologetic lover of shoes, bacon and babies. Nice with the verbs. Founder of the top black parenting website, MyBrownBaby.
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