“We had fought and built more independent institutions than any African people ever outside of Africa before Garvey got here and before the Caribbean migration started. This just happens to be a matter of truth. We had to do it. We couldn’t get any other people. If we were going to have any institutions, we were going to build them ourselves. We did it out of circumstances.” “The Baptist Church is the most African of all of the churches that we have developed. Now, I didn’t say they were sanitarily pure. I grew up a Baptist. I taught Sunday School. I think sometimes, in my anger, the Baptist Church is the loudest, the wrongest, and the most corrupt of them all. Still, I think it’s the most African in its manifestation. Not because of the corruption. But because there are so many things African still being practiced in that church. Some things are practiced wrongly. Some things are being practiced opportunistically. When I saw my stepmother being buried in that church where she grew up, and I knew that she was one of the most evil women to ever walk the earth. And we said, ‘She will never die.’ One day the Devil and God are going to let her evil away. There was a whole community that she had slandered, singing her praises: people whose reputations she had destroyed, praising her name. Now that she is dead all is forgiven. That’s a beautiful cultural trait. I’m afraid I’m not quite big enough to forgive. Well, anyway, it’s a beautiful thing. The point is that having attended funerals, wakes, and weddings in Africa, I know that behavior is pure African.” John Henrik Clarke “Who Betrayed the African World Revolution? And other Speeches” Page 107
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 12:23:49 +0000
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