Heart4kidsadvocacyforum's Blog

These blogs will be a series of messages that are rooted in the “Negro Spirituals” of my ancestors.  I feel like the more I live life, the more I realize how their legacy left us messages that can helped to guide them and navigate them through the American culture and systems that have a day-to-day impact on the quality of our lives.  They have been coming to me in my dreams and meditations more and more every day.  I now understand how they managed to utilize their tenacity, genius, and gifts of the remnants of their cultural practices and principles, that were wiped from their memory, yet somehow, they were able to weave new nuisances of those gifts into tools that not only supported their ability to survive, laid the foundation on which they were able to seek freedom mentally, physically and spiritually. 

We have so much to learn from them that I feel will give us not only a guidepost for moving through this era of the challenge to rebirth the tenants of our democracy, but give us a more wholesome and healthy perspective of who WE have been to this country and who WE are to be now and, in the future, as full participants of equal value and significance.  WE are no longer the “fixers”!  WE no longer have to be apologetic for our existence as human beings in the fabric of this nation.  WE no longer have to hide or find excuses for who WE are as spiritual beings and what WE look like in the multitude of our physical artistic features and textures.   WE no longer have to seek approval from anyone for anything.  WE now must embrace what our ancestors are calling us to know – “WE are enough”!  Now WE are simply called to pour into ourselves, our families, and our communities.  WE are to nurture our gifts and use them to manifest our self-reliance and self-worth.  We are to make self-care, or I say, “Care for self”, as a priority.  WE are the only ones interested in our health and happiness.  WE are the only ones vested in the growth and development of our children.  WE are the only ones that care about the health, safety, and sustainability of our communities.  WE have been called to action to take up our own self-determination