Remembering will free us

How Community Empowerment Will Save Us

Community,

Brothas,

Sistahs….,

Comrades,

I was inspired to write this after reading Ruth Noemi Bendel newsletter titled, “Libraries will collectively liberate us.” This post reminded me of a newsletter I published last year called "Anti-Literacy Laws," which I have since archived but will weave some of it into this "newish" newsletter.

When it comes to issues pertaining to book banning, censorship, etc., I must say that it rubs me the wrong way. Did we leave our brains in Afrika? When the historical significance of our very real human existence has been debated for millennia.

It's true that new concrete slabs have been put over top of our graves to make room for their new shopping divisions.

I beg, where is our historical Black consciousness?

We see accessibility challenges and anti-literacy policies as nothing but new language to describe old behaviors. This explains why our forefathers and mothers were keen about stewarding our past and artifacts that are important to us. 

Who else was going to rescue our items and stories but us?

"Until the lion tells the story, the hunter will always be the hero," goes an Afrikan proverb.

Not long ago, were we not considered three-fifths of a human by law.

Our beloved Assata Shakur told us, “No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history or your true heroes if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.”

Did we forget about revolutionary freedom fighter Nat Turner leading a revolt on August 21-23, 1831, in South Hampton County, Virginia known later as Nat Turner’s Rebellion, that bought good white people to their knees? So much so that Virginia immediately enacted a new series of tougher and more restrictive regulations for dealing with both freed and enslaved Black folk, outlawing large gatherings of Black folk unless supervised by a white man, that extended to the already limited access to reading and writing that to was quickly revoked.

Limited access to literacy and locations to congregate without supervision is not some sort of historical phenomenon that may or may not have occurred; it is still occurring. We are still living with the Nat Turner effect. This is why, throughout history, Black folk have been each other's safe haven.

Booker T. has a quote that says, “Cast down your buckets where you are.” That is, make the most of what you have and accomplish what you can where you are. No one else is going to save us except for us; there isn't a perfect storm.

Our resources and materials have traditionally served as survival tools for us throughout time.

Our DNA serves as a repository of memories, begging us to remember.

Our bodies are the tangible expressions of a living archive.

Look around, and you'll see us casting down our buckets where we are:

• Originally housed in the downstairs of Margaret & Charles Burroughs' home, the now-DuSable Museum was then known as the Ebony Museum of Negro History.

• Dudley Randall's independent Black Publishing company, better known as Broadside Press, began in his home.

• The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture was founded on Arthur Schomburg's lifelong dedication to collecting.

• The Black women in Chicago who formed the Coalition of Black House Museums make it clear that Black House Museums are "living artifacts."

• Dr. Khalid’s Black history 101 Mobile Museum.

• Ola’s work at the Free Black Women’s Library.

• Jacquie Verbal here on Substack creation of BlackStack.

• I created my own community accessible Black Archive.

Barely an exhausted list.

Reading, writing, and stewardship for Black folks is essential to our unique kind of community empowerment. No one else is going to save us except for us. Intentional planning and curating of experiences that contribute to our collective recovery is part of our shared healing process because when you are free, so am I.

If we don't know, how will we rediscover ourselves?

How will we empower our community when we don't know history?

If we are unable to regain our memories, no legislation can reverse our own historical amnesia.

Remembering will free us.

Sister + Comrade

Nubia Lateefa