Our Only Hope
HUMANS who are oppressed, as history teaches, have constellated in history’s past to earn, and maintain their humanity. When we take time to gaze at the constellation, awe, simultaneously constricts and inspires us to emulate what we see with urgency. We read of illiterate slaves who anxiously yearned to read books, like the impatient child on Christmas Eve desiring to know what the gift-paper concealed. They soared to such great heights with the alphabet, that even the sobriety of death’s fetters couldn’t detour the African slave from ascertaining true liberty. And this zeal thundered into the heart of Harriet Tubman. A woman whose inimitable self-dignity was contagious. She shines bright in the constellation because who taught her astrology? No man can transfer such knowledge, but it is no contradiction when I mention her teacher was a book.
It is through books that our unrealistic and irrational perspectives are refined and purified. For, education is the fire and we are the gold. Fortuity created the yearning for education because our ancestors were immersed in a tumultuous, apathetic society. But aren’t great Oaks planted by migrating birds? How else should they have sought freedom, but through education? If we skim the history books or allow our minds to wander as the historian lectures, we will miss the train our ancestors rode into liberty. To them education was deep, refreshing water that only needed to surface to nourish life. Time was no deterrent because they transcended time as they irrigated the waters of knowledge to flow, eternally to all their descendants. You only need to look at the root of the family trees of America’s first. I can assume that education wasn’t just facts or abstract, debated ideas; education was understood as a type of praxis which meant concretized liberty, wisdom, understanding, and a mindfulness of self and others.
Only transformed people can transform the world.
I reach so far back into history to highlight several things. 1) in one of the most oppressive moments in human existence—education was cherished. It was seen as a river of life— all drank from it, bathed in it, found pleasure and joy in it; it was centripetal to preservation. 2) there is nothing new under the sun, everything that has been done will be done again, our wisdom lies in doing what our forefathers did. Refinement is necessary, but if their philosophy carried us to our current reality will it not, once contextually refined and purified, propel us into a future and prosperity neither of our minds can fathom? 3) freedom isn’t gained though reading books but understanding and using what we comprehend in the books to transform ourselves, because only transformed people can transform the world. Martin Luther King, Jr informs us of the need of self-advocacy through myriad forms of protest, he contends, “If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.” In other words, it is a tragic and immoral error if, in the 21st century, we cultivate no desire, urging, or yearnings for education. At this point, our elementary dignity is self-inflicted. Unless we educate ourselves through the infinite wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and truth our ancestors left for us in books, we and our world will remain darkened. For, that which we call light, will truly be darkness. Does this seem like hyperbole or exaggeration? If so, reread this piece with your progeny in mind.
A woman in the Civil Rights Movement was once asked why she was involved in the struggle.
“I am doing it for my children and for my grandchildren,” she replied. Seven years later, the children and grandchildren were doing it for themselves.
“Liberate the minds of men and ultimately you will liberate the bodies of men.”
