Wallace Best Lecture " The South in The City" and the guest panelists.
Building Community at Community Tea...
Ending Black History Month with a Bang!
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Picture from Harambee Community Tea and Wallace Best Lecture
Black History month ends with a bang! Enjoy these pictures from the Wallace Best Lecture and the Harambee Community Tea. February 28, 2005.
Wallace Best Lecture " The South in The City" and the guest panelists.
Building Community at Community Tea...
Ending Black History Month with a Bang!
Wallace Best Lecture " The South in The City" and the guest panelists.
Building Community at Community Tea...
Ending Black History Month with a Bang!
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2 comments:
black is beautiful! where can I get a tshirt?
What becomes of the colored girl, Celie?
A Black Man Perspective of Alice Walker The Color Purple: the Musical
The novel won the Pulitzer Prize and sold over 5 million copies. The movie won eleven Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe. The story won the hearts of millions worldwide and now the musical sings on Broadway. The Color Purple is an inspiring family saga that tells the extraordinary story of a Black woman, Celie, who through her love for others finds the strength to triumph over adversity and discover her unique voice in the world. One might say that it was a very appropriate tribute for the students of Harambee (the Black student group at HDS) to see this provocative musical during the commemoration of Negro History Month. In addition, it was evenly appropriate for us to see the musical during the year-long “Celebration of 50 Years of Women at HDS.” Conversely, was it truly appropriate or simply convenient?
Although I have read the book and seen the movie a dozen times, the musical affected me in an unusual manner, while the book and movie did not. As I mused over the timely convenience of Negro History Month and the year-long “Celebration of 50 Years of Women at HDS”, I am astonished at how little homage is paid to the Black woman. The absence of her vision in critical race discourse authored by Black men, and despite the stifling of her distant legacy when black history is memorialized, she still manages to forge a path for her own recognition, on terms that do not require traditions sacred to whiteness or maleness. Black women have had to love themselves and others without reciprocity, rear a family and a Nation, while ignoring the endless patriarchal supremacy of society’s practices, habits, and images of her. The violation of her body has been overlooked in Harvard’s history, in our year-long celebration of HDS as well as in the Black community’s central identity.
In black womanist ethics, Katie Cannon suggests that black women live out of a moral wisdom that is different from that of Black men because of the uniqueness of Black women vulnerability and exploitation and different from whites because whites created and advanced the system of oppression. This moral wisdom does not rescue Black women from the bewildering pressures and perplexities of institutionalized social evils, but rather exposes those ethical assumptions which are inimical to the ongoing survival of black womanhood. Similarly, womanist theologian, Rev. Cheryl Sanders distinguishes the moral wisdom of Black women as a commitment to uplift, empowered by a bold vision the imperative to love God, neighbor, and self, which inspired countless Black women to become engaged in a dynamic movement towards justice and human wholeness.
One can witness the moral wisdom in the central character of Celie. For me, Celie captures the ethical qualities of what is genuine and what is of value to womanhood. Celie’s character represents the moral symbolism of Black women. So what becomes of the colored girl? The ultimate answer is up to us and it will depend upon our daily treatment of the many “colored” women we encounter. Without our acknowledgment of her, she will continue to be “invisible”, and suffer for her witness, her courage, and her passion for human wholeness. It is clear that Walker’s Celie lived because of her passion for God, causing her in the end to live for others. While one might view her living as suffering, living for others is not the same as living with suffering. Indeed, Celie, like so many other Black women for so many years, lived to overcome suffering.
The same may be said of Jesus.
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