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Whose Story is it, Anyway? Delivered by Janis F. Kearney - Curry biennial Reunion Philadelphia, PA, 2002
Good Evening. How wonderful it is to be here this evening, before an audience of warm faces -- and, knowing that most of you are kinfolk. I know that each of you feel much the same as I do about how blessed we are to be here; that God has spared us, in the midst of the many tragedies to take place in this world just this year. But, one way we can look at this blessing, is that God is keeping us here another day for greater things. I wanted to take a minute to say thank you to the committee who put this wonderful program together. I tell you, there's a few places in the country who could learn a few things about putting on the Ritz, from this Curry family. I wanted to especially thank our hosts for keeping me up on your plans, and giving me ample time to plan to be here. As I was flying in yesterday, I had time to reflect on a number of things, including my own life…I find that I do that quite often now. You might also be interested to know that I do a great deal of flying, and that in itself, gives rise to a lot of reflection. But, Friday morning, as I was flying the friendly skies, I thought back on not only my life, but the life of my parents, my ancestors…and, the many, many people who came before them. All those young and old who traveled the seas, from the other side of the world to be deposited in this world, as someone's cook, nanny, housekeeper, or field hand. So, this morning, after thanking my God for another day of blessings… waking up with the world no more changed than it was, from the day before -- and, this is something now we must be thankful for -- I reflected on how fast our world changes. How easily what was normal yesterday, can be swept from beneath our feet, today. And I reflected on the lives of the people who have made a difference in my life. And, I said to myself, thank God I was blessed with a good memory, because these memories need to be catalogued, recorded, to pass on to my children, their children, and those that come after them. You know, I was visiting a family, my husband and I, just the other day. It happened to be a Jewish family, friends of ours, and I was amazed at the wonderful archives they maintained, just a part of their everyday lives. Their home was filled with 100 year old pictures of parents and ancestors, and rich, wonderful stories to go with each one. It was another example to me, of just how important creating one's history is to the pride and posterity of a family, of a race, and one's culture. Now, when I say "creating history," I do not mean, making one's history up, or falsifying or embellishing one's real history. What I do mean, is recording chronicling, documenting one's history -- be it, through photos, words, videos, books, poetry, songs…what have you. The vehicle of our history is not half as important, as the completeness of it. How in the world will we as a people, ever be able to convince others that our culture is valuable, if we don't take the time to value it, preserve it, nurture it -- like so many other cultures do. In a nutshell, we as a race, have to learn the simple art of saving, preserving our stories to assure our place in the future. Tonight, my friends, I want to take just a few minutes, to tell you how important I believe securing a history for our race and our culture is… given the obstacles we must work against that are already out there. We, as a race, cannot erase what others have already learned about our history from others. We cannot undo preconceived notions, but we can add to these, by telling our own stories. We can confront the myths with the truths. We can offer alternatives to the old untruths written for so many reasons, other than truth. Let's have a brief history lesson in the life of African Americans: Our ancestors arrived in this country as slaves -- against their wishes -- in the early 1600's; was awarded our freedom (from slavery) 250 years later -- over southern whites' dead bodies; were given access to equal education almost 100 years later, in the 1950's; was given our civil rights, in the 1960's -- finally putting an end to the south's Jim Crow laws; and, given our voting rights about that same time -- making the south's "poll taxes" illegal. With these kinds of statistics, most intelligent people would say we have come a long way in a short time. Yes, but how much of that history was told by people other than ourselves. How much of that history have we just begun to uncover. How many of you knew that after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, more than 200,000 southern blacks left their masters to fight along-side Union troops in the Civil War. Or, that former slaves served as Union spies, ship pilots and nurses -- 20 of them won the country's highest military award, the medal of honor. The thirteenth Constitutional Amendment outlawed slavery; the 14th Amendment protected the rights of the newly freed slaves; and the 15th amendment gave black citizens the right to vote. How many of us knew that, even with the advent of Reconstruction, after we had won the right to be elected to high offices, help write new legislation and state constitutions -- 14 blacks served in the U.S. House of Representatives between 1870 and 1876 -- that, even then, more than 2000 blacks were lynched between 1882 and 1901? HOW DO WE PRESERVE OUR HISTORY?? African American newspapers have been, for almost as long as we have been in this country, an invaluable contribution to our culture that made… Ida B. Wells, a foremost crusader against inequality and racism, began her crusades at the age of 19, and helped found one of the most important newspaper of that era, in Memphis, Tennessee. Magazines, devoted to telling "our" story, remain as important to our posterity as they were 100 years ago. John H. Johnson's role in telling our story continues in the publication of Ebony, and Jet magazines. Today, we also must be thankful for another chronicler of our times, Essence Magazine, which boasts one of the highest circulations of all women's magazines. And, last, but not least, we can never forget the Crisis Magazine -- NAACP's primary communications vehicle for almost 100 years. Founded by W.E. B. DuBois, and other Black leaders during the early 1900's, the magazine successfully chronicled racial injustice, violence and struggle in a way that no other mainstream publication would dare do so.
The 381-day Montgomery bus boycott, featuring none other than that beautiful martyr, Rosalyn Parks, and our leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., who said during that time: "…historians in the future generations, will have to pause and say, `there lived a great people -- a black people -- who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization…" Music has been a part of the African American Diaspora for as long as we have existed, before we arrived on American soil. Negro Spirituals: Who can deny that we are inextricably tied to that great body of musical literature known as Negro spirituals -- the medium slaves used to express and cope with their dire existence. Motown magnate Berry Gordy probably never understood back in the days when he was discovering and recording the likes of Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, the Jackson Five, the Impressions, the Temptations, and so many more history-makers, that he was making such a vast contribution to the annals of American history. It is through his records, the songs and groups who sang them, shaped during the Motown era, that gives us a clear picture of that period -- and our lives, in that time. They sang about it, they lived it, and now, without it being their foremost intent, it is a treasured piece of our history.
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