Perseverance in the face of tragedy is a staple of the Black community. Surviving devastation has become so engrained in the Black psyche, it’s hard to separate the two. Events that appear insurmountable for many are often anticipated, a literal rite of passage. “How old were you the first time you experienced . . . (insert horrific event)?”
The Black “Homegoing” is a microcosm of that same Black experience in America. Early in the African Slave Trade, slaves were much more closely tied to their ancestral roots. Traditions were carried with human cargo during the Middle Passage. The newly-enslaved Africans believed death signified a return of the soul to the Homeland with the ancestors. Considering the horror they now faced, death was easily a much better existence. It mandated a celebration.
True to its DNA, the Black community persevered through centuries of the worst treatment of human beings in documented history. Relegated to the status of permanent livestock, hope for a life free from bondage sustained generations. That freedom could be in the physical form on Earth, living life as a “freedman” or it could mean a symbolic freedom with the soul released to a better place.
Forced cultural assimilation could never extinguish the will of the Black community to hold on to its humanity. The Black community now practiced a corrupted and modified version of Christianity. This form of population control sought to subjugate Blacks to permanent subordinate status by coupling their physical bondage with a far more insidious form of domination, mental servility.
Despite the clear objective of mental castration, the Black community still held traditions as sacred. Full forms of music, methods of cooking, story-telling, and manner of style/dress survived centuries of extensive efforts to sever any tie to the Black ancestral home(s). The Black community took this corrupted form of Christianity imposed upon them to further white supremacy and turned it on its head. The same Bible that was only presented to them in an abridged form (though never allowed in their exclusive possession) still provided hope to Blacks living a literal hell on Earth.
It is upon this backdrop that the Black Homegoing must be analyzed. One cannot overstate just how sacred the tradition is. After generations, Blacks in America replaced the African ancestral homeland with the heaven they heard preached in the Bible. They became synonymous and after generations, the Black community knew more of slavery than their actual bloodline. Sadly, slavery became the entire existence of the overwhelming majority of Black people in America.
Hope for something greater was all many had. Survival required them to hold on to the hope of reaching the “Promised Land,” lest they only exist to be subjected to daily torture. Whether that land be physical or spiritual, it was a blessing many sang of and sought daily. It sustained them. So one can only imagine the literal joy many felt to see another subjected to the same nightmarish existence, finally free. The celebration that “sent” that human being “home” was a recognition of them finally at peace. It was simultaneously providing hope for others. One day they too would no longer have to toil in the abyss of bondage.
The means of the Black Homegoing has evolved over generations, but the end is always the same. It is mandatory to celebrate that person’s life and the reality that the Black oppression in America can no longer harm them. While it is true that slavery in its original form has ended, it is still very much practiced in every state of the Union. Oppression and denial of the Equal Protection of the Law is likewise denied the remainder of the Black community that is not currently incarcerated.
The Black Homegoing is a celebration of those realities no longer controlling the life of the person currently celebrated. This is true of any Black American, be it the homeless man that remains nameless or a Civil Rights ICON. So with this context in mind, the passing of the arguably the greatest remaining vestige of the Civil Rights Movement necessitated the greatest Black Homegoing imaginable in the world of COVID-19.
John Lewis fought his entire life for the Black community. Literally penning a letter of instructions to the people from his deathbed, Lewis always sought to advance the Black community from the tortuous reality he endured for 80 years. The path was slow and arduous and unfortunately too long for Lewis to see it to fruition. With this reality in mind, Lewis’s Homegoing was planned. It involved multiple locations and services on multiple days, one last crossing over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and his being honored by a who’s who of both the Black community and the world of social justice. Lewis was to be eulogized by the last President this country has seen, the first Black President of the United States, Barack Obama. It must be noted that the Obama Presidency likely never occurs without John Lewis and all he fought for, a reality that was never lost on neither Obama, nor the Black community.
However, before that sacred event could be concluded, America had to have one “last laugh.” In total, three former Presidents spoke at Lewis’s final service of his Homegoing. Ironically, the Republican former President knew full well what was and was not appropriate. George W. Bush’s words were eloquent and gracious, a far cry from his Presidency. His dialogue actually made many ponder on how far he had come, almost wishing the current occupant of the Oval Office could be more like him.
But true to form, White America had to make its indelible mark of despotism on the life of John Lewis one final time. Bill Clinton, a man that once joked he was the first Black President, is perpetually too comfortable in exclusively Black spaces. Indicative of his nature, Clinton would not waver during the sacred Black Homegoing for a sacred icon of the Black community. His words, reminiscent of the Willie Lynchism tactics imposed during slavery, sought to illuminate a perceived division in the struggle for Black liberation.
It was an underhanded and veiled slight, spoken quickly in a manner that would lead the passive listener to believe that John Lewis openly disagreed and clashed with another icon in the struggle for Black equity. While praising Lewis, Clinton referenced a division HE remembers in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC was an organization of student protestors and freedom fighters who sought nonviolent means to protest and resist segregationist practices in the South. SNCC was founded by 126 student delegates from various institutions. Among them were John Lewis and Stokely Carmichael. Their goal was uniform, direct-action challenges to civic segregation and the political exclusion of the Black community. SNCC sought to eradicate both with all deliberate speed.
Lewis and Carmichael may have personally favored different means of achieving their goal at times, but not to the point of pitting one against the other as an adversary. Put simply, they were fighting the same beast at the same time, seeking the same outcome. But, leave it to Clinton to impose revisionist history during the Homegoing for John Lewis. “Thankfully, Lewis prevailed…” were the words of Clinton, hinting that there was some struggle to “liberate” SNCC from the oppression of Carmichael. It was shameful and uncalled for.
Stokely Carmichael was a freedom fighter and not an oppressor. His contributions to the Civil Rights Movement cannot be quantified any more than those of John Lewis. Carmichael coined the phrase Black Power. A phrase many take for granted today, was unheard of when he first said it. One of the most revered alumni of Howard University, Carmichael set the world on fire with his powerful rhetoric. One cannot speak of the struggle for Black liberation without mentioning the name Stokely Carmichael (or Kwame Ture the name Carmichael took in later years).
Much like John Lewis, Carmichael is a sacred icon. To speak negatively of Carmichael invites passionate debate or worse. It is an insult to the Black community to degrade its icons. Clinton did exactly that while on invite to an exclusively Black space, a sacred Black Homegoing for a sacred Civil Rights icon. He pitted one icon against the other without either of them alive to refute his subversive tactic. It was horrific.
However, the Black community will always survive. It will always endure. True to its character, the Black community brushed off this nasty tactic, which could have easily placed a stain on such a sacred moment. After all, those in attendance (either physically or virtually) were waiting for someone greater. While he is an imperfect human (a trait he wears on his sleeve openly), Barack Hussein Obama is a master of understanding the moment. Obama delivered one of his best speeches of recent memory, eulogizing the great John Lewis appropriately. By the conclusion of his speech, Clinton was a distant memory, as he should have been. John Lewis was appropriately sent “home.” He was finally at peace, no longer burdened by the cancerous disease that plagued his life. Racism could no longer harm him. He was finally free and no form of oppression, be it overt or the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” from Arkansas, could ever touch him again.
Long live John Robert Lewis, an icon and personification of the Black experience in America.
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