Black Love
“Black love is Black wealth and they’ll
probably talk about my hard childhood
and never understand that
all the while I was quite happy”
— Nikki Giovanni, Nikki-Rosa
Did you know that George Washington Carver discovered hundreds of uses for peanuts, or that Frederick Douglass was a prominent figure in the abolitionist movement, or that Jackie Robinson was the first Black person to play in Major League baseball? Probably. I think these and many, many other figures in Black history, American history, are incredibly important, their contributions meaningful and so very significant. I can't help but wonder, though, if sharing a list of facts, as has been the Black History month custom since time immemorial, or keeping our reveries focused on a select few actually celebrates the beauty and richness of a culture, its depths and complexities.
“Black love is Black wealth and they’ll
probably talk about my hard childhood
and never understand that
all the while I was quite happy”
Black heart by Bryan Garces
Did you know that George Washington Carver discovered hundreds of uses for peanuts, or that Frederick Douglass was a prominent figure in the abolitionist movement, or that Jackie Robinson was the first Black person to play in Major League baseball? Probably. I think these and many, many other figures in Black history, American history, are incredibly important, their contributions meaningful and so very significant. I can't help but wonder, though, if sharing a list of facts, as has been the Black History month custom since time immemorial, or keeping our reveries focused on a select few actually celebrates the beauty and richness of a culture, its depths and complexities.
I suppose I'm also interested, perhaps more interested, in whether their families broke out into full harmony when singing even "Happy Birthday" to a loved one, like mine does? Was weekly church service an event around which all other activities orbited, like it was in my family - where one's best clothes were worn and complimentary dinners were made and served on white tablecloths with special glassware, where the eldest man said prayer among held hands and bowed heads before anyone sat down to eat and share stories? Could their grandmothers wield an otherworldly kind of confidence and create safety and belonging with pies and cakes, and did they carry culture and pass it down in the most subtle ways to their female heirs, like mine could and did? Where did their ever present dignity come from?
I wish Black history museums curated stories of freedom alongside their many stories of slavery. I wish they talked about choirs and music and dance, about the style of Black pastors. I wish they discussed how hip-hop rose from a musical and cultural legacy of self-expression, and even joy, within hardship. I wish they celebrated textured hair and what its evolution may say about the state of an entire people; or how Black girl magic might very well be a thing - woven together, in no small part, from the character-building patience and fortitude required for routine hair care, and the conversation and community-building that happens all the while. I wish a visit would yield a deeper understanding of how language and culture have morphed and evolved, what lovely things remain, and what things have changed as a result of the diaspora, because I’d sincerely like to know more.
Mostly I'd like the evidence to confirm, to bring to life and living color, something I know to be true: Love never dies. It remains. It endures. It will find a way. There is so much beauty, so much richness in Black culture, so much to be celebrated. I invite us all to go a little deeper - to highlight the threads that are unique, to find the ones that are shared, and to celebrate them all as part of a wondrous human tapestry.
Quotes from the Classics: February
Love is in the air! Let’s kick off Love Month with some classic quotes about affection, intimacy, and endearment. Included are beautiful words by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, in celebration and recognition of both love and black history and culture.
Love is in the air! Let’s kick off Love Month with some classic quotes about affection, intimacy, and endearment. Included are beautiful words by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, in celebration and recognition of both love and black history and culture.
Red rose by Jamie Street
“To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.”
“He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”
“And what is a kiss, specifically? A pledge properly sealed, a promise seasoned to taste, a vow stamped with the immediacy of a lip, a rosy circle drawn around the verb ‘to love.’ A kiss is a message too intimate for the ear, infinity captured in the bee’s brief visit to a flower, secular communication with an aftertaste of heaven, the pulse rising from the heart to utter its name on a lover’s lip: ‘Forever.”
“Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.”
“Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.”
“Come when the nights are bright with stars
Or come when the moon is mellow;
Come when the sun his golden bars
Drops on the hay-field yellow.
Come in the twilight soft and gray,
Come in the night or come in the day,
Come, O love, whene’er you may,
And you are welcome, welcome.”
Love in all things,
April Eileen
P.S. Don’t forget to check out my other V-day posts - Valentine’s Day: Away from B.S. and Back to Basics and What’s Lovely on Valentine’s Day - for more love!