Here is a video regarding Negro Spirituals and perhaps the most celebrated song ever written by a white songwriter: http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=DMF_24cQqT0
What an emotional presentation! I could not stand to listen as Wintley Phipps began humming the non-lyrical version of Amazing Grace — the melodic moans that John Newton heard filtering up from the slave pit on his ship and later used to pen this most amazing song celebrating God’s forgiving and loving nature. My God! What we have endured! Have you ever considered the scientific theory “survival of the fittest” and its implications for Africans who were transported on those slave ships across the ocean during months of rough seas? If one believes in that theory, then people who descended from those Africans are indeed the strongest people on the planet. During the months at sea, many died and their bodies were eventually dumped overboard. Some of the women were pregnant or became pregnant after rapes, and some of these babies held fast in their wombs to be born on this continent. The food was atrocious, the brutality beyond imagination. Plenty died, half naked, chained in putrid air in the bottom of the slave vessels. Some may have been killed, if they got too sick, allowing more food and room for the healthy cargo to fetch the highest price at the slave markets. Therefore, Brothers and Sisters, only the fittest survived. Descendents of Africans who survived on those slave merchant vessels went through such a horrible process of weeding out the weakest through the arduous journey that only the strongest survived, and they are our ancestors. Our genes are derived from the genetically superior future slaves who did not lose their minds or much of their health, or their determination to survive! The journey across the Atlantic was then followed by centuries of enforced servitude under cruel circumstances, during which these Africans who were from various nations across that continent were forced to learn a new language, new survival skills, and develop a new common African American culture. What a people!
The Jews who survived Hitler’s concentration camps are another group of people who went through an even more depraved type of weeding out of the weakest among them. At least African slaves were a commodity. As such, there may have been limitations on the amount of bodily injury their capturers and masters wanted to inflict, although the mental abuse went on for centuries and continues. Jews had no such protection. The ratio of survivors of the Holocaust may have been only one out of thousands! Did you ever see pictures of the emaciated people the Allied Forces took out of the death camps? Imagine the degradation! Most Jews who escaped capture by the Germans nevertheless were unwelcome in other countries of Europe and even America during and after WWII, and great was their suffering. Yet, the strongest Jews survived, and many of their strong offspring became part of the American-Jewish population.
The first European settlers on this continent included tough Pilgrims and later, thousands of people who were transported from European prisons as indentured servants. These early white settlers also went through a rigorous weeding out process. The weakest of these people died under the tough conditions on the early vessels facing poor nutrition, lack of medical care, overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions during months of sea travel. Their journey to America was followed by years of war, various plagues, and many died. Later, only the strongest frontiersmen survived during the Western expansion. Later still, America’s European immigrants of the early and mid-20th century had already survived poverty, world war, and political injustice before crossing the sea on ships, daring to step out on faith to seek a better existence in America.
Consider Native Americans! Only the strongest among them survived the diseases brought to this continent by early European explorers to the mainland, Hawaii and Alaska! On the continent, this weeding out of the weakest among Native Americans by disease was then followed by years of war and such atrocities as the Trail of Tears. But the strongest survived!
Orientals from China and other nations in the East lived on ships sometimes for months, some as stowaways, before reaching American shores. Upon arrival, many of the earliest Eastern immigrants became little more than slaves, and they helped to build America’s railroads and performed grueling menial tasks. Plenty of the Mexican immigrants of yesterday and today had to survive hell getting across the border — many of whom died on the short journey. Determination and sure grit got them here.
That, my Brothers and Sisters, is why America is comprised of such tough people! Strong people — strong wills, strong constitutions! Most of us on this continent who call America home came from ancestors who went through survival tests that killed the weakest members of each group. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we Americans could actually come together and celebrate and embrace our differences! “Wouldn’t that be some ‘um!” as my grandma used to say. What’s really stopping us from coming together — skin hues? Old, stupid prejudices, perhaps fueled by a power structure that fears our unity? Lack of understanding that one God made and loves us all? Do you actually LOVE anyone who is of a different race from yours? Do you believe that someone from a different race can really love you? Are you loved by anyone who does not share your religious beliefs, ethnicity, or nationality? I’ve lived in the South all my life, so this idea is a relatively new for me. However, the closer I draw to the Father, the more I consider such things as brotherly love across all social and racial and national and cultural and economic barriers. What might we accomplish in this world if we actually come together in love and mutual respect and work together to solve the problems of our common home, Earth? Would our news headlines then change? Might they read, “World Peace Declared?” “World Hunger Ended!” “Global Warming Conquered!” “Many Diseases Wiped Out!” What accomplishments have we forfeited over the years by our failure to come together and work for the common good of all peoples?
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Genesis 11:6
These might be good things to consider as we celebrate the upcoming Holiday, in honor of a man who shared with us his dream for harmony among all peoples.
HAPPY MARTIN LUTHER KING’S DAY!
Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
P.O. Box 7222Atlanta, GA 30357
http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com
Tags: Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill, Dog Justice by Mary Neal, Larry Neal, Martin Luther King's Day, Mary Neal, Mental Health, Mental Illness, The Cochran Firm, wrongfuldeathoflarryneal
