January 1

“Honey, I went to a Negro History meetin' tonight," said the voice on the phone.
      “Well, they had several speakers…. There was one pretty young colored girl who … gave a nice talk about Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and many others … and I noticed that everybody would name a couple of folk and then add 'and many others….'
      “Now I can't think about the many others without thinkin' of my grandmother…. Toys? She'd pull up a clump of grass, tie it in the middle to make a 'waist line' and then comb the dirt out of the roots so she could braid them in two pigtails, and that would be a 'grass doll' with 'root hair' … and the boys got barrel wires for hoops and pebbles and a ball for 'jacks.'
      “Every minute of Grandma's life was struggle…. After the kids was off to bed she'd sit in her rockin' chair in the dark kitchen, and that old chair would weep sawdust tears as she rocked back and forth. She'd start off singing real low-like … 'I'm so glad trouble don' las' always,' and switch off in the middle and pick up with 'Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry' … and she'd keep jumpin' from tune to tune … 'I'm gonna tell God all of my troubles when I get home' … and she'd pat her feet as she rocked and rassled with death, Jim Crow and starvation. All of a sudden the rockin' would stop and she'd jump up, smack her hands together and say, 'Atcha dratcha!' and she'd come back revived and refreshed and ready to go at them drat troubles….
      “I bet Miss Tubman and Miss Truth would like us to remember and give some time to the many others.”

On this New Year's Day, this day of Imani (faith), the final day of Kwanzaa, with the words of author Alice Childress from her book Like One of the Family, published in 1956, we honor all of our sheroes and sister-griots-- our Tubmans, Truths, and many others-- who have brought us thus far by faith, forging our Sister Days.

National
Women and Womenhood

USA
Kwanzaa: Faith

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