When the lie becomes the truth

There is a line in the late Michael Jackson’s hit song “Billie Jean” that says, “be careful of what you do, cause the lie becomes the truth.” 

“The lie becomes the truth” is an accurate statement when reflecting this Black History Month, on the journey of people of African ancestry. 

“The lie becomes the truth” applies to the statement in the Declaration of Independence that says: 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” 

We know this is a lie that some people want to make a truth. We know the framers of the Constitution were not only enslavers of Black bodies but also ethnic eradicators of native people. 

We know that while they penned those words, they were engaging in the tearing apart of African families and the selling of those same Africans into perpetual bondage. 

We know they even wrote in that same Constitution that Africans were only three-fifths human and only then for taxation purposes. 

We know they never intended for Black people to be included in that equal clause. 

“Be careful what you do when the lie becomes the truth.” 

In his book Black Church, White Theology,” Theron Williams has a chapter titled “The assimilating Black Church.” 

He examines how far too many Black churches and Black people began to take on the theology of white evangelical America. 

This assimilating Black church phenomenon has also been discussed by the late Black historian James Melvin Washington, who is quoted as saying that between Emancipation and 1963, there is a period he called “the bourgeoisification of the Black Church.” Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., calls this period “the hundred years war on the Black Church.” 

What all three of these scholars were pointing out is that the standards and biblical beliefs of white evangelicals heavily influenced how Black people practiced the faith. 

The ways Black people worshiped were seen as too emotional, and many Black people began to believe the lie. 

Assimilationist ideas about natural Black hair as not proper and that Black women in particular should straighten their hair, and Black men should process their hair with toxic chemicals, began to take root in many Black people’s minds. 

Some of you reading this are old enough to remember that “Artra skin tone cream,” or “Nadinola” skin cream were advertised all over Black radio to persuade Black people with dark complexions to bleach their skin with these products in order to lighten their complexions. 

Dr. Williams points out how after the Civil War white missionaries went down south to not only “save the souls” of newly freed Africans but to also prepare those Africans to live like white people lived, and take on white ways of living in this society. 

“Be careful of what you do when the lie becomes the truth.” 

Many Black churches, like the First Baptist Church of Savannah, GA, put in their names “African,” because they wanted to be identified as an African people. 

However, after Emancipation many of these churches changed their names because they had been led to believe that being African was uncivilized. 

The CMEs were just one example of denominations that changed their name from African Methodist to “Colored” Methodist. They have since adopted the name “Christian” Methodist. 

“Be careful of what you do when the lie becomes the truth.” 

And that leads me to a tragedy almost too much to bear, “when the lie becomes the truth.” 

Lincoln University, a historically Black university, was started by all-Black regiments, the 62nd and 65th Infantry of Union soldiers. The African men in these regiments had the highest literacy rates of any of the troops. 

Dr. Greg Carr quoted recently from Dr. Lorenzo Johnston Greene, who did extensive research on Black people in Missouri. Dr. Green says Dr. Carr pointed out that in the Black regiments, of 431 Black soldiers 99 could read and write, 337 could spell multiple syllable words and were learning to read at a rapid rate and that fewer than 10 hadn’t mastered the alphabet. 

These men also raised over $6,000 to start Lincoln University, to continue after the war educating Black people. In fact, one man according to Dr. Carr dedicated $100 of his annual salary to Lincoln University, and his annual salary was $162. 

However, on January 8, 2024, the vice president of student affairs, Dr. Antoinette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey, committed suicide because the white president of Lincoln engaged in what she called bullying and harassment over an extended period of time. 

Why did a historically Black university employ a white president in the first place? 

And why didn’t the leadership of the university address Dr. Bailey’s concerns when she voiced them? 

After all the sacrifices those Black soldiers went through, to not only have a white president—but one who could not understand how to be an ally to Black people—is tragic. 

In fact, in far too many of our present institutions, far too many Black people matriculate through them and are never taught the history and sacrifices that went into building these hallowed places. 

During this Black History Month, let us reflect on what happens when we allow the “lie to become the truth.”