Dr. Daniel Black Omotosha Black spoke these words on Karen Hunter’s podcast, “A leaf scattered by the wind does not forget which tree it came from.”
You see the leaf knows that it can only be what that particular tree that it came from bequeath unto it and that it must plant the seeds of identity for the future of its species wherever it lands.
Africa, the birthplace of all humanity and the originator of civilization, is the tree whose leaves have been scattered to the Americas via the wild winds of human trafficking by those who came from Europe, then North America.
Those wild winds have also assaulted the leaves of Africa through negative narratives about Africa and Africans to try to make the leaves of mother Africa forget what tree they originated from before the winds of the human traffickers who scattered them violently all over the planet.
“A leaf scattered by the wind does not forget which tree it came from.” Therefore, an oak tree leaf will soar on the ethereal winds of life, yet it will neither forget nor be seduced into reducing itself to become a willow, a bush, or a blade of grass.
That Oak leaf will immerse itself into whatever ground the winds have scattered her and deposit within that ground a seed, the eternal, ancestral and epigenetic spiritual algorithms vouchsafe to it by its creator to become the stately and mighty oak it was destined to become.
In this political season, we are witnessing what Dr. Jason Johnson refers to as the “defunding of Black America.”
He cites examples of the defunding of government employment that led to the rise of the Black middle class in North America.
The defunding of Public education which Black people originated at the end of reconstruction and which produced giants like Thurgood Marshall in law, to astronaut Ronald McNair; from Septima Clark in education to Ella Baker in activism. Giants have been produced through public education which is why the wild winds of racism and anti-Black hatred are trying so hard to erase the memory of that greatness found in books and the lives of those who tell the story.
Finally, the defunding of “race-based remedies,” that were designed to balance the scales of economy advancement that allowed Black people a well-deserved opportunity at economic development.
DEI and Affirmative Action were not handouts like the welfare that corporations and CEO’s, are receiving at this very moment from the government, but DEI and Affirmative action programs were opening the door and creating opportunities in the “old boy,” network’s that barred Black people from having an equal chance in this society.
Those African descended people were and are the best of the best because they had to work four times harder than the average White person therefore, they are the most qualified.
However, the metaphor of the leaf is essential in this season. A leaf which is cosmically created to live out a purpose in whatever time and place it is planted in must live out its divine destiny to plant the seeds of identity to the future.
The leaves of mother Africa carry molecules of the greatness of a mighty people.
We whose skin has been kissed by nature’s sun have been gifted with divine destiny that was cosmically created for us to plant the seeds of the future based on a past that stretches far beyond the interruption of chattel slavery.
A future squarely based on the long legacy of African people who took seven ton stones and created the Great Pyramids of Giza.
A future passed down by of Africans who circumnavigated the earth by sea at least five hundred years before Solomon and a thousand years before Christ.
A future that is in the DNA of every person who was marvelously made with melanin and these same people are the ones who according to Yosef Ben-Jochannan, gave birth to the world’s three major Western religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
The same leaves of Mother Africa introduced the world to
that sable-skinned Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, Christ, and Lord.
Never forget the tree you came from because as it says in Psalm 139:13-14, “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” God made you first, and God made you great.
And on this day that I compose this missive, I celebrate the birth of “Our shining Black prince…” as Ossie Davis called him in his eulogy. We remember the leaf that became like a mighty oak tree among us.
The students in Nigeria named him Omowale which means “the son who has returned home,” his Islamic name is El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and we know him as Malcolm X.
Thank you, Brother Malcolm for helping Negroes become Black Africans and for explain
ing it in another powerful metaphor when you said, “if a cat has babies in an oven those babies are not biscuits but are kittens.”
We who have been birthed in the oven of America-after being blown from our ancestral tree of Africa still carry the seeds that can transform tragedy into triumph and orchestrate victory from defeat. Remember where the leaf came from.
Be well, Be authentic and Stay Woke. Uhuru Sassa!!!
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.” Contact the church by email at [email protected] or by phone at 219-944-0500.
Rev. John E. Jackson
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.”