Grace and Truth: A word from pastors

At an invitation by Mennonite Church USA, I recently took a journey back through the civil rights era. The Sankofa Journey is designed for participants to retrace American history through the lens of the African-American experience. I must admit I was pretty sure I knew my history, so I began this process thinking I could assist and support non-African-Americans who were interested to learn more about African-American historical events. Even though I knew many of the stories and places, I was blessed to fill in gaps about our history that were unknown to me. And because of the journey, I learned more about my people through fresh, uplifting eyes.

On the journey I was most enlightened and empowered by a place called Slave Haven. It is a small, African Slave and Underground Railroad Museum that keeps the story of those early years in which Africans were unwillingly torn from their native land and relocated across the Atlantic Ocean to an unfamiliar land with no understanding of what was happening to them and why.

Slave Haven provides a context that explains what many people have been told about slavery that created a level of fear, anxiety, loss, shame and dissolution to Africans and their descendants. Slave Haven taught me about Africans who fought for their freedom, who did not give in to their captives and who pooled resources to survive.

The curator of Slave Haven tells a rich story of the African people and their descendants as they were brought to America. Through this wonderful storytelling, I left with pride in who I am today, and I left with the fortitude of my ancestors. I realized that I came from a chosen people, blessed and carried by God.

When I returned home, I read a book that was encouraged by the curator, titled, Hidden in Plain View: A Story of the African Quilts and the Underground Railroad. (See also “The Underground Railroad Story in Quilts” in the January 2011 issue of The Mennonite). Through the story of quilts, the book touches on what it means to be African-American. Many Americans have heard the story of African-Americans through the word and spirit of the oppressor, but when you hear these same stories from the words and spirit of the oppressed, things look much different.

I come from a people who, like the Israelites, were in bondage for generations. Like the Israelites, the African slaves looked to God to lead them to the Promise Land. I come from a people God blessed with extraordinary talents. When slave masters took and withheld the basic necessities of life, my people created new ways of survival. When slave masters pushed their religion on the African slave, it was that very religion that freed them from their oppressor.

I come from a strong and powerful people, a people that from the beginning of their trials and tribulation never stopped or wavered from fighting for their freedom. The history books will tell of a passive, ignorant, lost people that were carried by their captives. But true history tells of a people who outsmarted their captives and never stopped fighting for liberation.

If God is on the side of the oppressed and marginalized, then the story of the African slave shows how only the love and grace of God kept my people for more than 400 years. The reality is that until all of us search for the truth hidden in plain view in our own lives, we cannot truly know God or ourselves. How much different would the plight of African Americans be if we were told stories of our intelligence, ingenuity, creativity and fortitude instead of stories of shame and loss? A history that shows we come from some of the best and brightest of God’s creation.

God looked at us, God smiled and said, “It is good.” If when you go and look in the mirror, you do not like what you see, I encourage you to do what I did: take a look back through your history. Reclaim those lost stories of strength and love. Seek to correct the misinformation that has been told for centuries and retell them with truth. Then return to the mirror and see the beauty of what God created and say, “it is good, and it is well with my soul.”

Cyneatha Millsaps is pastor of Community Mennonite Church in Markham, Ill.