From Nadir to the light of New Beginnings 

The late Dr. Frederick G. Sampson said, “There are times in life when we feel overcast by dreadful and foreboding shadows.” Shadows of insecurity, shadows of uncertainty, shadows of anxiety and fear. Yet, Dr. Sampson said, “Try not to get fixated on the shadows because no solid object can cast a shadow of itself. If there are shadows, that just means that a light is shining from somewhere. Find that light and focus on the light.” 

Finally, the gospel of John declares, “In Him [Jesus] was life, and that life was the light of the world. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

We are experiencing the death of life in America as we have known it. The present administration has cast shadows of hypocrisy, shadows of mendacity, shadows of meanness, shadows of hate and insensitivity, and shadows of racism and white supremacy loom large over the landscape of life in the society, creating an overcast in the skies of hope. 

We are experiencing another nadir in this “yet to be united states of America,” to quote Queen Mother Maya Angelou. A nadir is the lowest, most depressing, and difficult point one can sink to in their personal and/or public life. Marginalized people experienced the nadir at the birth of America when indigenous people were scalped, slaughtered, and herded like cattle on the Trail of Tears. 

Africans experienced the nadir when doctors, attorneys, scholars, scientists, mothers, fathers, children, wives and husbands were stolen from their homeland, stuffed in the stinking holes of slave ships to be auctioned like property and callously separated from their families and forced to work for free to enrich white plantation owners and northern banks and financial institutions for over 246 years.

America experienced another nadir when, between 1877 and the early 1900s, Reconstruction was ruthlessly rescinded, and Black bodies again became tools for white cruelty as white human traffickers were given reparations. Yet, despite the nadir of shadows and darkness, a light beamed in the hearts and souls of Black folks, and between 1877 and the early 1900s, some of the greatest heroes and sheroes not only were born but brought the light of hope and resistance. 

In music, the nadir could not resist Scott Joplin, who brought us Ragtime, the mother of the blues, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey gave us joy. Huddie William “Leadbelly,” Ledbetter, sang the Blues, that comforted our souls, and James Hubert “Eubie” Blake laid foundations for Jazz along with Joe King Oliver and Louis Daniel “Satchmo,” “Pops” Armstrong. The Harlem Renaissance took flight under the brilliant light of Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Alain Locke, to name just a few. 

In law, the nadir gave way to the light of Charles Hamilton Houston, who made it his calling to free Black people through the courts, bringing along with him Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker Motley, Paulie Murray, and so many others. In activism, the light burst forth from the Niagara movement, which became the NAACP, and voiced the frustrations of Black people along with luminaries like Hubert Henry Harrison, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Carter G. Woodson, Joel Augustus Rogers, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, and Amy Jacques Garvey. 

In religion, the nadir could not hold back the light of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Noble Drew Ali, Rev. Charles Albert Tindley, Mordecai Johnson, Vernon Johns, and Howard Thurman. In print media, the nadir brought forth the light of Robert S. Abbott and The Chicago Defender Newspaper, Robert Lee Vann and The Pittsburgh Courier, John Mitchell, Jr., and the Richmond Planet, and so many others. 

Therefore, the nadir we are presently in cannot stop the light that has passed on to us to create a new beginning of light and hope. Shadows are still non-substantive, and the light is still shining. The death of the way things used to be will lead to the birth of a new reality if we focus on building as a community, rather than individually. 

Minnie Haskins wrote, “And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown. And he replied: Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way. So, I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.” 

“The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness cannot overcome it.” We are the light of the world, my people, so shine! Be Authentic, Be Encouraged and Stay Woke. Uhuru Sassa!!!     

The 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.