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I am Black but was not raised in a Black community. I did not learn about Juneteenth until I was in my 20s. I'd never heard the Black National Anthem "Lift E'vry Voice And Sing" until then, either. When I finally did hear it, it felt like a beckoning from a long lost ...
ancestor. I have journeyed toward knowing my Black ancestry and loving my Blackness. It included a pilgrimage back to Charleston, South Carolina, where in the late 1700s my great-great-great-great grandmother Silvey lived on Church Street and was a slave owned by...
Joshua Eden. I dedicated my memoir, Real American, to her. Their daughter Silvia would go on to be freed and live in a house on a small road called Henrietta Street whose backyard would have faced what is now Mother Emanuel AME Church. While visiting Charleston, I attended...
the church services at Mother Emanuel, where, a year and a half earlier, the white supremacist Dylan Roof murdered nine parishioners after attending bible study with them. The service included Lift E'vry Voice and Sing, which I sang with heart and tears and was so overcome...
being in that magnificent and holy space with THAT song that I could barely stand, but then the strength embedded in the lyrics, and maybe the Lord himself, buoyed me.
My ask: For all of you who are not Black but are parenting a Black or biracial child, or for those of you...
My ask: For all of you who are not Black but are parenting a Black or biracial child, or for those of you...
who are Black but raising your Black children in white spaces, be sure to teach them this song. When they find themselves on their journey to knowing and loving themselves fully in their Blackness this song will be a beckoning...
from ancestors and today's living diasporic Black community. It was that for me. I offer it to you now in case you don't know it, and if you do know it, you might find in these links another lovely rendition.
https://religionunplugged.com/news/2020/6/18/this-juneteenth-listen-to-lift-every-voice-and-sing-the-black-national-anthem-and-hymn
https://religionunplugged.com/news/2020/6/18/this-juneteenth-listen-to-lift-every-voice-and-sing-the-black-national-anthem-and-hymn
