Member-only story
Who am I to Despair?
My ancestors were stolen from their lands, forced to endure a transatlantic nightmare of imprisonment, disease, violence, rape, and despair, where at journey’s end they were forced into chattel slavery by sadists. Still, with everything they ever known and loved cruelly taken away, these enslaved people hoped and fought because they believed, if tomorrow could not bring better for them, then at least it could deliver hope for their children.
With only the barest promise of freedom, these same ancestors, dared to risk everything. In a strange land, with armed men and dogs at their heels, they fled from plantations through the dead of night towards an impossible dream.
Our ancestors repeatedly lost everything. Colfax, Tulsa, Rosewood, Wilmington, Elain, and many others little known or now lost to history, all mercilessly burned to the ground. They lost their community, homes, and businesses to violent White mobs. Time and time again these Black families rebuilt as best they could while enduring the barbed taunts of “What’s wrong with Blacks? Why don’t you have anything?”
We fought Nazis for a country that still abused, hated, and ridiculed us. In a military that refused to fully accept us or acknowledge our achievements. A military that routinely treated German POWs with more consideration and respect than the Black soldiers sacrificing their lives.
