You can listen to the generated speech freely without limitation. But I’m still here.”Acapela-Box is a service that provides a conversion of your text into speech by using the Acapela Text to Speech technology. He rubbed his bald head, looked at me in a way that spoke more than words. I asked him recently, as we were laughing together on the couch, “Granddaddy, do you still got your dance moves?” He paused, as one trying hard to travel down memory lane. Select from a variety of male or female voices and enjoy a natural speech But not all was lost.
![]() ![]() It is a time where we pause, we hear. It is a time in which we once again tell the story of black resilience and resistance, endurance and engagement, suffering and sacrifice. It is Black History Month. Witness is history being honest about its wishes.We remember Auschwitz and all that it symbolizes because we believe that, in spite of the past and its horrors, the world is worthy of salvation: and salvation, like redemption, can be only found in memory.As I sit at my computer this morning, it is February. Witness reveals the telling of history without false pretense of history for history’s sake. This consciousness “does not romanticize the past.” It is keenly “aware of suffering and those who cause it, and it also sees God working toward the good in the midst of pain.” The history of the past always bears witness in the present.What is the aim then? Jennings writes that it is simply: witness. Rather, we must see “a past unfolding in a future and making intelligible the present.” The goal is historical consciousness. It is always being woven in front of our eyes, always inviting us to perform a world, to dream of a reality.Willie James Jennings, professor of theology at Yale Divinity School, writes that the goal of telling history is not simply being a historian or thinking historically. Love never quite lets us get away with our forgetfulness, our disregard of how power has been abused, and our ethical commitment to change.Maybe that is what makes history so powerful. It presses on us that piercing but powerful word: love, love, love. It never lets us go until we attest to the wounds and commit to healing. This life is a life “crowded with self-questioning and question for God concerning anger, hatred, and violence visited upon a people.” This should not escape our attention. Though we have pushed the country in the pursuit of its highest ideals, it is done in the soil of forced migration. One of the crucial things to see is that black history, as with Israel’s story in the Bible, takes place in diaspora.Christ crucified “manifested God’s loving and liberating presence in the contradictions of black life.” This memory empowered black folk to realize that ultimately in God’s future, they would not be defeated by the world’s horror or terror.Jennings writes that “diaspora means scattering and fragmentation, exile and loss.” It means a longing, a searching for a place to be, a place to stand. Du Bois speaks of is the shadow of a past that we have tried to forget. This ever-present “two-ness,” a warring between the selves, that W.E.B. One cannot speak of being black and being American without being forced to deal with the complexity of such a paradox. The dream, diluted and distorted. As she reflects on how we remember black people’s struggle in America, she writes that “a movement that had challenged the very fabric of US politics and society was turned into one that demonstrated how great and expansive the country was—a story of individual bravery, natural evolution, and the long march to a more perfect union.” The re-narration suggests that racial injustice, Americans’ original sin and deepest silence, “derived from individual sin rather than from national structure.”Thus the progressive and expansive vision of the black freedom struggle became passive and privatized. A symbol of the progress of America, particularly white America, to finally “get it.” To finally stop hating black people enough to afford them the opportunity for that great triple promise of the democratic creed: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.Jeanne Theoharis captures the heart of this myth. We are striving not simply to be perfecters of democracy in America, but to obey the command of Christ, and be the perfecters of Christian love in the church in this desperate land.For many, this story has become a myth of progress. For years, Baldwin would try to forget that night. Then, finally, he entered into a shocked and helpless rage. It was the news of tragedy. As he sat by the poolside, the phone rang. Tidy files for macIt is the power of a conviction to survive and the power of a confession to never yield to the forces that would destroy them. But memories are not powerless, as Morrison has already reminded us and as Baldwin likewise expresses: “Intangible dreams have a tangible effect on the world.” And diaspora life is not simply loss but also power. See our privacy policy for more details.The memory of a dream. You can unsubscribe at any time. First Name Email Address * Sign-up for our weekly newsletter. Though the nation would try to wash Martin and the history of the black freedom struggle away, James held on to what little piece he had: memory.Comments Sign Up for the Comment Newsletter Join readers who receive fresh, thought-provoking articles once a week right in their inbox. We remember our striving.We believe with Elie Wiesel that “in spite of the past and its horrors, the world is worthy of salvation: and salvation, like redemption, can be only found in memory.”American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it. In a time of religious, social, economic, and political chaos, it seems critical that we sit at the feet of these stories of freedom.So we remember history. As Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, writes, “We are here because we believe we have a story to tell to the nation, and our experience has something special to say to the world.” Our language and storytelling have a way of helping us in the dark. It is the audacity to survive.Even if we don’t have all the answers now, we must bear witness. It is a faith that God will bring hope in the midst of the worst of circumstances.
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