By Rev. Dorothy S. Boulware
Originally appeared in Word in Black
If you haven’t seen For Colored Girls in Black History, then you obviously were not present for morning worship on February 25 at Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia.
It was a sight to behold, with the familiar staging of Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem animated by the voices of Maya Angelou, Mahalia Jackson, Harriet Tubman and Madame C.J. Walker. And the preacher of the day was Dr. Kevin James, 19th president of Maurice Brown College, who told the story of the school’s beginning in 1881 through its loss of accreditation. He told how the school survived 20 years without accreditation, a miracle in itself, is now in a #HardReset and will soon break ground on campus for a $40 million phenomenal hotel. He attributed the school’s survival to the triple As: Almighty God, the best alumni in the world, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. On April 26, 2022, the Board of the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools gave Morris Brown College full accreditation.
On its website, New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore advertised a Black History Month University over three days in February, promising things “you don’t know.” This was in addition to February programming that included Old School Sunday where worship resumed music, adornment and the processing of the choir at the beginning and the ushers for the offering, as had been done in the past.
“When I was 10 years of age [we] moved to the outskirts of Washington D.C. and for most of my life, I never saw any pictures or heard any stories about the contributions that African Americans have made to society, to our country or even to the world,” said the Rev. John K. Jenkins Sr., board chair of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), and senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Glenarden.
“I can’t remember ever learning about a single person who had made significant contributions. but I’m grateful that Black History Month reminds us to put something out in front of our children to know that they can rise up and be whatever it is God has called them to be.” The NAE website instructs its member churches in making such presentations for their children.
In Florida in response to recent laws banning the teaching of Black history it is reported that nearly 300 churches have incorporated Black history lessons into their worship, and into special programs for the entire community to enjoy.
On any given Sunday of February in any given year, the likes of Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X speak volumes to those in attendance at Black churches around the country. Today, there is a pointed interest in telling people who have never heard it, and who may not be hearing it at the kitchen table as some of the elders heard it long ago.
So many Black schools and colleges were begun by churches in this country so it is only fitting that churches continue to tell the story, the gospel story and the African-American story of overcoming and survival through the power of God and she determination
“I believe Black history month acknowledges that for Christians, God has always been the true source of hope, joy and peace (Romans 5:13),” said Dr. James E. Francis Jr., Restoration Counseling Atlanta. “God brought up people out of bondage. He can be trusted, despite the yet-to-be fulfilled ideals America was founded upon.
The history of Black people in this country will be told in spite of laws, which is the way our foreparents operated. In spite of laws, they were taught to read. In spite of laws, they found ways to worship privately. In spite of laws, they found ways of escape and spread the word through coded maps, sometimes within braided hairdos. In the same way they refused to be deterred from a life of freedom, the story of that determination refuses to be silenced.