AT THE TABLE

May 7, 2009
May 16, 2011

“AT THE TABLE”
By Rev. Dr. Larry D. Coleman


For a few remarkable years, a number of black preachers and pastors, myself included, met for communal breakfast and spiritual refreshment, every week day morning at Niecie’s Restaurant formerly near 60th and Prospect, in Kansas City, Missouri.

We met “at the table,” roughly, over a ten-year period from 1994 through 2004, under the faithful and persistent leadership and example of Rev. Emanuel Johnson, former pastor of Mount Vernon Missionary Baptist Church, now deceased, and his friend, Rev. Aaron Neal, Sr., former pastor of Paradise Missionary Baptist Church in Kansas City Kansas, also deceased.

Rev. Neal, a co-convener of the table, was newly arrived from California, but originally from rural North Carolina, had invited me to the breakfast table shortly after I was licensed to preach in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1994. Brand new to the ministry, my zeal for the word was such that I would carry a minimum of two different versions of the Bible with me, among my legal papers, in my “satchel,” as Rev. Johnson, a rural Arkansas native, and Rev. Neal’s co-convener of our breakfast table, termed my brief case. They called me “the lawyer.” Freely utilizing that rhetorical license legendary among black preachers usually resulted in my being termed,“De lawyer,” for dramatic effect. Either way, I was, in fact, a sole practitioner licensed to practice law in Missouri, and also the pastor of tiny Brooks Chapel A.M.E. Church, in Butler, Bates County, Missouri, roughly 70 miles south of K.C., simultaneously.

Members of “the table,” as it came to be known, sat in a corner of that small restaurant beneath a wall mural depicting diners engaged in conversation in a bustling inner city soul food restaurant, while dining on a variety of delectable food items. “Members” is an inexact term; as there were no membership cards, the table was open to any male, Christian pastor or preacher who showed up early enough to get a seat. Females were not permitted, though, as co-conveners Reverends Johnson and Neal, being old school, fundamentalist Baptists, “did not play that” at all.

Some other ministers who frequented the table, during my tenure there, included Rev. Kenneth Ray of Highland Missionary Baptist Church; Rev. Gregory Washington of Good Samaritan Missionary Baptist Church; the late Bishop Emmanuel Newton of the Christian Tabernacle Church of God in Christ; the late Bishop W.B. Henderson of the Trinity Temple Church of God in Christ; the late Rev. O. Cordell Moore of the Temple of Faith Missionary Baptist; the late Rev. A.L. Johnson and his associate, Rev. Carl Hatcher, both of Zion Grove Missionary Baptist Church; Rev. Gregory Stevenson, Park Avenue Missionary Baptist Church; Rev. Robert Davenport, Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church; Rev. F.J Jordan, Gospel Tithing Baptist Church; Rev. Elijah Clark, Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church; Rev. Frank Witherspoon, Freewill Baptist Church, along with many, many others. Visiting ministers, revivalists, and evangelists also enriched the table while they were in town.

Camaraderie and commensality distinguished the table. Laughter was always on the menu. So were theological inquiries and debates, ranging from the astute to the absurd. Rev. Neal once asked the question, “Did Jesus commit suicide?” “Suicide?! What you drinking in that coffee,” someone asked to peals of laughter and muffled mirth. “How did you come up with that novel idea?” I asked. He replied, “Jesus said ‘no man takes my life from me. I lay it down on my own’. Well, didn’t he say it?” A thoughtful silence descended. I reached down for one of my Bibles. “Go John 10 and see what it says,” advised Rev. Neal. Sure enough, in John 10:17-18. The word said: “For this reason the Father loves me,(S) because(T) I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18(U) No one takes it from me, but(V) I lay it down(W) of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and(X) I have authority to take it up again.(Y) This charge I have received from my Father."

Well, thus ended that particular discussion.

Sometimes, even Myra, and Renona, her sister, two of Niecie’s most notorious, no-nonsense waitresses, would chime in with their acerbic wits, to keep “it real” and to keep everybody else “real” at the table! Myra was busy like Martha. Renona was thoughtful, like Mary, Lazarus’ two sisters, described in Luke 10.

Of course, the main preoccupation at the table was Jesus Christ: him crucified and resurrected. In this regard, I remember Rev. Johnson describing how he had fashioned a sermon entitled “It Depends on Whose Hands It’s In.”

Once, while driving to Omaha, Nebraska, up highway I-29-North, he happened to see a billboard describing an insurance company as “The Good Hands People.” That insight led the preacher to proclaim that in his hands a piano was just a noise-maker, but in the hands of a skilled musician, it became a magnificent instrument. Similarly, a scalpel in his hands was a murder weapon, but in the hands of a skilled surgeon, it was a healing tool. Finally, 2 small fishes and 5 barley loaves, in his hands, was just lunch.

But, in the hands of Jesus--but, in the hands of Jesus!--that little lunch could feed over 5,000, with twelve baskets of fragments left over. (Matt.14:13-21) “It just depends on whose hands it’s in,” he explained.

At the table, there were no big “I’s” and little “you’s.” There was brotherhood at the table. There was hope at table. There was renewal at the table. There was love at the table. There was deliverance at the table. There was joy at the table. There was provision at the table. There was the Holy Ghost at the table. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNZK8vC8KQY&NR=1&feature=fvwp

At the table, at the table, at the table!

#30

COLLARD GREEN TREE

Tuesday, November 16, 2010
THE COLLARD GREEN TREE
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman

We’ve all heard of Jack and the Bean Stalk. That child hood fable sent chills down our spine as the giant furiously pursued Jack down the beanstalk, in pursuit of his stolen harp. http://pbjclibrary.state.ar.us/mural.htm

The precise nature of the beanstalk is not revealed. Whether kidney bean, lima bean, pinto bean, or some other, we know not. We simply know that it mysteriously grew over night from five magic beans, given to Jack by a stranger in exchange for his old cow. We also know Jack chopped it down in time before the child-eating giant could climb down to earth on it from above.

While reflecting on this fable, my mind drifted back to a time, long ago when I encountered a colossal collard green tree in southern California of all places!
Could there be a more unlikely “tree?”

I’d heard of the “fritter tree.” This alluring, imaginary tree was reputedly laden with gifts and goodies for unwary African children snookered into devious slave catchers’ nets, according to at least one account, by Charlie Smith, a 134 year old former slave, who had been so beguiled http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0394970/ ; http://www.ovguide.com/movies_tv/charlie_smith_and_the_fritter_tree.htm# The earth has many strange trees, but few as strange as that which I now recount. http://www.thatsweird.net/picture37.shtml

As everybody knows, greens are vegetables. Vegetables do not grow on trees.
But, collard greens sometimes grow on trees, I was surprised to learn. http://www.bountifulgardens.org/products.asp?dept=141

I first saw a collard green tree in Los Angeles in my Aunt Suzie McDonald’s back yard. In fact, she plucked some collard greens from the tree and cooked me up a mess of them during my visit, during the summer of 1973. They were quite good. Their tree was approximately fifteen feet tall, and approximately thirty years old, according to Uncle Walter McDonald.

I know collard greens reasonably well. My father, Elvis Mitchell Coleman, Aunt Suzie’s brother, had grown them in our back yard, practically year round, sowing as soon as the earth thawed sufficiently in late winter. Native Mississippians, we ate greens almost every day, either: collards, mustard, turnip, occasionally spinach. Although we migrated to Missouri in the early 1950’s, our babies’ first solid food still consisted of pot liquor from greens mashed up in cornbread mush, which daddy would mash up and feed our babies with his hands. They’d love it! And they would usually cry for more at the end of feeding.

Collard greens are also known as tree cabbage or non-heading cabbage. http://urbanext.illinois.edu/veggies/collards.cfm Scientific Name: Brassica oleracea var. viridis http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/cgi-bin/measure.pl , http://urbanext.illinois.edu/veggies/collards.cfm The good: This food is low in Saturated Fat, and very low in Cholesterol. It is also a good source of Protein, Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Thiamin , Niacin, Magnesium , Phosphorus and Potassium, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Calcium, Iron and Manganese. http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2411/2#ixzz15py7MqQp

A vegetable commonly associated with southern African American diets, even former kale snobs are discovering and celebrating its nutritional and aesthetic value. http://www.veggiegardeningtips.com/paying-homage-to-collard-greens/ http://oregontreehugger.com/collard-greens/comment-page-1/#comment-4186

Frankly, I cannot say that I’ve ever knowingly consumed kale, which doubtless is a cousin of the collard green. http://www.botany.com/brassica.html http://www.veggiegardeningtips.com/growing-fall-vegetables/

I wonder about, and am dubious of, alleged black people who are ashamed of collard greens. I speak now of Tiger Woods, whom professional golfer Fuzzie Zoeller “outed” by means of a reference to fried chicken, another southern favorite, and collard greens after Tiger won his first Masters tournament.

According to Wikipedia:
"But at the 1997 Masters tournament, Zoeller made an off-hand remark regarding Tiger Woods. After finishing tied for 34th place with a score of 78, Zoeller, referring to the following year's Masters Champions Dinner, for which the defending champion selects the menu, said, "He's doing quite well, pretty impressive. That little boy is driving well and he's putting well. He's doing everything it takes to win. So, you know what you guys do when he gets in here? You pat him on the back and say congratulations and enjoy it and tell him not to serve fried chicken next year. Got it." Zoeller then smiled, snapped his fingers, and walked away before turning and adding, "or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_Zoeller


Of course, Tiger Woods, despite his father’s unmistakable Negroid ethnicity, may not be “black,” according to Tiger, because his mother is from Thailand. Whatever! It certainly appeared that “little” Tiger was offended by Zoeller’s presumptive insinuation of his “Negroness” by his culinary references.

Tiger is not alone. A brouhaha erupted at NBC during black history month, no less, in 2010, when the posted cafeteria menu supposedly “offended” some alleged black people, because it included references to fried chicken and—gasp—collard greens! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/04/nbc-serves-fried-chicken_n_449821.html NBC apologized, even though the soul food dinner was nevertheless served
as advertised, and apparently enjoyed!

What is it about collard greens? A cashier at a local grocery store was bold enough to ask me what collard greens were, while stating she did not eat them. “Ask your manager,” I snapped, thoroughly miffed she did not know the identity of the very produce, which she was paid to price and to sell.

In this age of “natural” food or “organic” food, it would seem that the collard green would be celebrated as a wonder green! After all, in substantial part, it is responsible for the nourishment of some of the world’s greatest athletes, musicians, ministers, entertainers, soldiers, laborers, politicians, patriots, educators, administrators, writers, lawyers, physicians, artists, etc.

Instead of celebrating collard greens’ historic and enduring vitality, certain grocery stores do not sell them at all, for whatever reason. And many persons treat them like a second-class, taboo food, condemned by history and sociology. Jews and Muslims have religious proscriptions against pork. Hindus have like proscriptions against the consumption of cattle or beef.

But, I am not aware of any religious proscriptions against collard greens, unless the vanity of collard green snobs constitutes a creed!

#30

JADED JUBILEE? Year 2019, The Bible and Black Destiny

Originally written: Tuesday, April 6, 1999
Today’s date: Sunday, May 01, 2011

By Rev. Dr. Larry D. Coleman ©2008
6837 Lakeshore Drive
Raytown, MO 64133
(816) 353 4899
www.larryslibrary@blogspot.com
lcole81937@aol.com


JADED JUBILEE? Year 2019, The Bible and Black Destiny

1. INTRODUCTION

This essay declares that the Year 2019, some 20 years hence, is the year of deliverance for persons of African descent from American oppression. This prophesy, hypothesis, vision, revelation–or whatever name one may ascribe to it–including “wish” or “hope”--is based upon scriptures from The Holy Bible and historical events.

The 2019 revelation was visited upon your author, Larry D. Coleman, a Kansas City attorney, amateur historian, and African Methodist Episcopal church pastor, while I was reading Pope Paul John Paul II’s Crossing the Threshold of Hope on February 22, 1995, on my dining room table.

As I read that portion of the book dealing with the word, “soteriology,” which is the history of salvation, the Spirit told me to look in my Biblical notes, which I had been annotating on long, legal size yellow pads, and storing in folders. Taking one such voluminous folder from my brief case, I flipped open to the date: January 20, 1994, and on that date the following scripture and annotation was written:

“And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;
And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge; and afterward shall they come out with great substance.” (Genesis 15:13-14)

Beside these verses, I had written: “Prophesy of Afro-America.”

With a certainty as sure as breath and life, itself, I knew in that instant that God was speaking to me, and speaking through me on a subject which I had long cogitated, ruminated and fulminated: the destiny of my people, and the “why’s” and “wherefore’s” of our history and predicament.

My insights on this subject have already been published in a six-part series in the Kansas City Globe newspaper, commencing in April 1995, and concluding in May 1995, entitled “2019: A Revelation from God?” This chapter is a synopsis of a larger work on the same subject, in gestation, awaiting publication.

“Jaded Jubilee? Year 2019, The Bible and Black Destiny” dares to declare a date of deliverance for African people in North America, in particular. It is an “ensign on a hill”(Isaiah 30:17): a clarifying, defining and vivifying vision which awaits, even as it induces, actualization in Spirit and in Truth, through faith and works. “2019" is life applied to hope and hope applied to life. Its utterance invokes its existence, even as its existence invokes its utterance. It is written so that:“The generation to come might . . . set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.” (Psalms 78:6-7).

This chapter is written to liberate and to empower: to demonstrate that the “power of the resurrection of Christ and the fellowship of his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10), is already embodied in African Americans, archetypally. We are the living proof of that power and fellowship. The Life of Christ, then, is the paradigm of our life, as a people, for we, through Simon of Cyrene, a black man, were “compelled . . . to bear his cross.” (Mark 15:21)

Our faith and works, along with his Grace and Mercy, conflate to liberate our people from the holocaust of the Middle Passage, from the terror of slavery, from the depravity of lynching, from the sting of “Reconstruction’s” betrayal, from the duplicitous legal condonation of official and unofficial vigilantism, from the humiliation of overt discrimination, “Jim Crow,” and from the absurdity of genetic inferiority stigmata.

That conflation now stands as a blessed bulwark to liberate us from the machinations of those who fight an undeclared war of attrition against us. This essay, in fine, is written to awaken the Children of Ham, in the Americas and elsewhere, to “the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:17).

The 2019 vision is a blessed assurance that our Year of Jubilee is Year 2019, because, “whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing ye shall receive.” (Matthew 21:22). Let us pray for and believe in Hamitic efflorescence in Year 2019! “Where there is no vision the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” (Proverbs 29:18) Praise God for an “open vision!” (1 Sam.3:1)

2. THE ENCAPSULATION

The book of Genesis contains these prophetic words:

“And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge; and afterward shall they come out with great substance.” (Genesis 15:12-14)

Year 2019 is the “acceptable year of the Lord,” (Luke 4:19), for the deliverance of African Americans from mental, spiritual, physical, legal and economic bondage in America, as prophetically decreed by Genesis 15:12-14.

How is this conclusion deduced? I took the 1619 date that we arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America, (Before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett, Jr.) and added the 400 years from Gen. 15:12 14, and that gave me the year 2019. Actually, the Holy Spirit, revealed it to me, as it was not taught me by man. “For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1:12) No one else in human history fits all of the criteria of the 2019 revelation, scriptural and historical, except African Americans. “He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness and the light dwelleth in him.” (Daniel 2:22).

Who else, I reasoned, have been “strangers in a land that is not theirs,” for 400 years, and who’ve been enslaved and oppressed? Nobody but us. This most powerful nation on Earth, the modern day equivalent of Egypt, the United States of America, will be “judged” for it is here that we are strangers, here that we have been enslaved and here that we have been oppressed for 400 years. And it is here that “great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Malachi 4:5) shall be realized in Year 2019. This is why our slave forebears sung “Go down Moses”; “John Brown’s body”; “Children, we all shall be free”; “Did not Pharaoh get lost”; “We’ll overtake the Army”; “Old Ship of Zion”; “This Old Time Religion”; and others. (The Original African Heritage Study Bible, 1993) They sensed, intuited in the Hebrew children their own prophecy, their own destiny.

3. CORPORATENESS VS. INDIVIDUALITY

Our forebears viewed themselves corporately, as a people. Thus, they sung of corporate redemption and corporate salvation. They viewed themselves as Africans in America. Thus, they founded “The Free African Society,” “African” Methodist Episcopal Church,” the “African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church”, the “First African Baptist Church,” etc.

Not until “integration” came into vogue as an imposed social aim did individual redemption and individual salvation supplant and displace our sense of corporateness, spiritually. Integrationists came to view themselves as “colored”. Thus, they merged with white people in 1910 to establish the National Association for the Advancement of “Colored” People, after the Dr. W.E.B. DuBois-led “Niagara Movement” had failed. This latter organization, and its yet extant successor, was formed to oppose the syncretic, self-deterministic philosophy of Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute, which was later promulgated world-wide by Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Washington, the successor to Frederick Douglass who died in 1895, declared at the Atlanta Exposition, in that same year, that blacks and whites “in all things purely social could be separate as fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.” DuBois, by contrast, in the opening issue of Crisis Magazine, which he founded, as the official organ of the NAACP, advocated interracial marriage. The die was cast.

“Colored” people advocated acceptance into the American mainstream on the basis of individual merit on a non-racial basis, and eschewed conduct that would accentuate or call attention to one’s African-ness. Assimilation, amalgamation, and disintegration of vestiges of Negro-ness became a fetish with these folks. It was their remedy for American marginality, their ticket to the mainstream. They sought to become “white;” they identified with things “white,” and they came to revere things “white.” God, for them, was “white,” a white man to be exact. The white man, to put it bluntly. Yet the scripture teaches just the opposite: “Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways.” (Proverbs 3:31)

The ancient forebears, i.e., blacks from before the Civil War to the mid-1920's, created institutions, art forms, folklore, values that we yet enjoy, because as Africans in America they knew that “If any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” (1 Timothy 5:8)

The integrationists, on the other hand, i.e., those who were foisted by others to fill the void left by the death of Booker T. Washington and to sully his legacy, and those who fomented and profited from the deportation of Marcus Garvey, abandoned and disdained self-determination and “African identity” in order to assimilate more easily into others’ institutions. “They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in.” (Psalm 107:4)

The “integrationists” with the aid of their “liberal” and “conservative” sponsors now rule the roost in Black America. They have done so, since the era of the assassin, the 1960s. “Disintegration” is in full sway. “I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.” (Jeremiah 12:7) By reason of these social and spiritual dislocations, a leadership vacuum has overtaken us: “As for my people, children are their oppressors and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.” (Isaiah 3:12)

Just as there are social integrationists, there are also spiritual integrationists. “Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.” (Jeremiah 12:10) The former work to disintegrate any tendency toward black unity as somehow “anti-white,” while the latter seek to nullify any tendency to interpret scripture from the perspective of black people as somehow “anti-Christian.”

That “color blind” individual redemption and “color blind” individual salvation, espoused by the “spiritual integrationists,” has not only eroded the sense of corporateness championed by the ancestors, but it has alienated black men and women from the church and from God, by adopting a taboo structure, wherein black culture and aesthetics are taboo. Spiritual integrationists, therefore, have estranged black culture from black religion and put them at war with each other, needlessly and in total defiance of the Hamitic aesthetic, ethic, and cosmology, which is quintessentially holistic. This has produced a “double-mindedness” in our culture, a hurtful self-estrangement & self-abnegation which has caused us to be “unstable in all our ways” (James 1:8 ). It has also caused us to “halt between two opinions,” (1 Kings 18:21 ) to our spiritual and secular detriment.

Large segments of our people have devolved and degenerated, by reason of “spiritual disintegration,” into a perverse type of agnosticism, cynicism, even atheism. They have come to demonstrate the ultimate oxymoron: an African without God! “He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.” (Proverbs 25:28)

“2019" is no more and no less than the recognition that God is speaking to our people and through our people to the world. It is a return to that corporate spiritual intuition, which sustained our ancient ancestors. We, like our Savior, Jesus Christ, are unapologetic about the doctrine of “race first”:

These twelve Jesus sent froth, and commanded them, saying, ‘Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” (Matthew 10:5-7)

As Jesus’ ministry was for his own Jewish people, my ministry is for my own, African American people. Yet, as Jesus’ ministry blessed other people, indeed the world, I have no doubt but that the 2019 vision will do likewise. Who, after all, are “our” people? Jesus teaches that they are those who do the will of God, regardless of gender or blood. (Matthew 12:50; Mark 3:35)

“2019" could be the “kingdom of heaven” or the “kingdom of God,” prophesied by the Savior, for our people, not in the ultimate, eschatological sense, but in the temporal, transitory “this side of Jordan” sense, viz.: “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! Or, lo there! For behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17: 20-21)

4. THE LIFE OF CHRIST AS ANALOGY


The Hebrew Children celebrate Passover, when the death angel passed over Egypt, dispensing death to the first born of the Egyptian people, and animals, (Exodus 12:12) preparatory to the Hebrew exodus to freedom via the Red Sea. The Nativity of Jesus Christ is described in the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In Matthew, because he is born “King of the Jews,” (Matthew 2:2) his life is sought, so he is taken into the land of Egypt, so that scripture might be fulfilled: “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” (Matthew 2:15; Hosea 11:1)

Similarly, the African American Nativity was at Jamestown, Virginia, on August 20, 1619. Our people, our heritage, our culture was born at Jamestown, that the scripture might be fulfilled “I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries; and they shall know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 30:26) Before this, we were disparate Africans who could not communicate with each other, consequent to Divine decree at Babel, the land of Nimrod, son of Cush, “the mighty hunter before the Lord,” the “beginning of his kingdom was Babel...” (Genesis 10:8-10):

“Go to, let us go down and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the City. (Genesis 11:7-8)


The African American Passover occurred at Appomattox, Virginia on April 9, 1865, when Robert E. Lee, the Confederate General, surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, the Union General. The military defeat of the slave holders during the Civil War brought a practical freedom; former masters lacked civil or military power to restrain us. Our legal freedom did not come until the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in December 1865. (Shades of Freedom, by A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., p.68)

Africans in America also had their Exodus, their “Movement of JAH People”, to quote Bob Marley. They fled the South after the collapse of Reconstruction, when they were betrayed by their purported Northern, Republican liberators, and left to be slaughtered by cross-burning, hooded white terrorists, in the tens of thousands for no greater sin than walking erect, breathing, seeking to live with dignity, secure in their persons and possessions. The law, of course, that is, judges, and the balance of the civil military machinery:politicians, police, national guard, stood pat, looking the other way, or, worse yet, actually joined the “picnic.” (See, The Betrayal of the Negro by Rayford Logan)

“2019" is not about The Armageddon. Nor the end of the world. No man can know that. “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” (Mark 13:32) “2019" is simply the date that we “overcome”, (Numbers 13:30) according to Biblical scripture: “Behold, I have foretold you all things.” (Mark 13:23)

“2019,” like “faith, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

5. Our Blackness and Our History

Mankind began in Africa. Scientists utilizing mitochondrial DNA analysis in the field of molecular paleontology have discovered that all humanity originated from a single female in Africa, whom they have dubbed “Mitochondrial Eve,” who lived 200,000years ago. She is the mitochondrial mother of us all. Likewise, the “Y Chromosome”–the male sex chromosome– which does not recombine but is passed unchanged through the male lineage, dates back, naturally, to an African man, some 140,000 years ago, whom scientists call “Adam.” (See, A Brief History of Science, by John Gribbin) The bottom line: Everyone, ultimately, is of African descent, to paraphrase Dr. John G. Jackson, author, Introduction to African Civilizations. Deeper still, all of us are kin, family!

"God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshiped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, thou he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring." (Acts 17:24-28)

Science has either confirmed religion, or caught up with religion, as the case may be! The boundaries of Eden wherein the primordial Garden was planted by God (Genesis 2:8) is defined by a river which splits into four heads (Genesis 2:10): (1) “Pison” which encompassed the whole land of “Havilah,” (Genesis 2:11) a son of Cush (Genesis 10:7), a black man, who progenitored the land of Havilah, which is known today as “Arabia.” (2)”Gihon,” which encompassed the whole land of Ethiopia (Genesis 2:13). Ethiopia has many names. One such name is “Cush” who was the first son of Ham (Genesis 10:6). (3) “Hiddekel” which goes to the east of Assyria (Gen 2:14), and is the modern day Tigris River. (4) “Euphrates,” the fourth river, along with the “Tigris,” run through the land ruled by Nimrod, son of Cush, (Genesis 10:8) “the mighty hunter before the Lord,” the black man, founder of Babylon, (Genesis 10:10) whose very name personifies power.

The late, great Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar, Senegal, in his African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality; Cultural Unity of Black Africa; and Civilization or Barbarism has proven that the Egyptians were black people, something many white people even yet deny. George G.M. James in his classic, Stolen Legacy, has proven that Greek civilization is no more than ancient African civilization, plagiarized. He draws reinforcement in this premise from a white man, Richard Poe, whose Black Spark, White Fire is a masterpiece in its own right.

Everywhere, the truth about us and our history, so long hidden from sight beneath the Western European horizon– Amen– is about to reemerge from its concealment in the underworld; is about to send forth its rays of light to slay the dragon of Darkness which has covered the Earth for Millennia. “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.”( Acts 20:30-31)

So pervasive was the darkness, so “grievous” the “wolves”-- Remus and Romulus several centuries removed--that we began to visualize Moses as a white man, even though one of his greatest miracles was to turn his hand white, “leprous as snow,” then back to black its original color. (Exodus 4:6-7) This same Moses was mistaken for an Egyptian (Exodus 2:19) by the seven daughters of the priest of Midian. Moses’ sister, Miriam, was also turned “leprous, white as snow” (Numbers 12:10) by God when she spoke against Moses. Likewise, Gehazi was turned into a “leper as white as snow,” (2 Kings 5:27) by God for having lied to Elisha about disobeying his order not to accept any of the riches of Naaman, the Syrian, who had come to Elisha to be cured of leprosy.

Nowhere in the Bible is there any mention of someone being “cursed” and turned black, as popular mythology would have you believe. On the contrary, those who were cursed were turned leprous, white as snow! The 13th Chapter of the book of Leviticus is full of observations on leprosy.

We, African Americans, "Hamites," (1 Chronicles 1:8-16), from whom the Ethiopians, Egyptians, Libyans, Canaanites, and Babylonians (through Nimrod) are the descendants of the original people. In truth, all people and all ancient civilizations originally came from our progenitors (Original African Heritage Study Bible Encyclopedia Concordance, p.305 “Ham”, by Dr. James W. Peebles). We lost all of this knowledge, knowledge of self, knowledge of origins, over the eons of our oppression, over the millennia of our dispersion. A people “scattered and peeled,” (Isaiah 18:7) we became a “byword among the heathen” (Psalms 44:14) a hissing, an astonishment, (2 Chronicles 29: 8-9) a proverb (Deuteronomy 28:37).

Now, look upon us, leading the world in poverty, ignorance, disease, and self-destruction! Who would imagine that from us sprang all knowledge, sciences, arts, languages? Count Volney, in his Ruins of Empires, marveled that our people who had been so high, who had given so much to the world, had fallen so low. The only one who was higher than us, who sunk lower than us, was Jesus the Christ, who leaped down through 42 generations (Matthew 1:17) assumed the form of man, and suffered the ignominy of the cross, as a sacrifice and a ransom for our sins, that we, through him, might have life eternal and have it more abundantly. The key to the equation, however, is that Jesus got up! He rose! Early one Sunday morning, an angel rolled the stone away and he resurrected from the dead! So, too, shall we, through the grace of God, in Year 2019. We too shall get up! We too shall rise! We too shall be resurrected, through God’s grace!

Right now though, we epitomize the prophesy of Hosea, who said: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou has rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou has forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” (Hosea 4:6) But, just as the bad things were true, the good things are also true: "Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God." ( Psalm 68: 31).

That "soon" is year 2019. And who is to say that the dispersal of the Ethiopians was necessarily “bad”? “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” (Isaiah 45:7) God can distribute his seeds as he chooses, where and when he chooses, for his own reasons. This we know. We are who we are, in spite of what we have gone through, and because of what we have gone through. Now, God has given us the victory in 2019:
For whatsoever is born of God over cometh the world: and this is the victory that over cometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that over cometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5: 4-5)


6. TRADUCERS’ LAMENT

How will 2019 come into being? It won't if we do nothing. I cite Matthew 18:19 20:

"Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

So, if two or more of us agree, and ask the Father, and gather together in the name of Jesus, believing in the 2019 prophesy, it shall come to pass. It is to be stressed that if we do nothing, then nothing will happen in the Year 2019, prophesy or not. Be it known: “He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.” (Ecclesiastes 11:4) But, If we work and strive to prove the 2019 hypothesis, and allow the Spirit of God in us to connect with the power of almighty GOD (Genesis 1:1), JEHOVAH (Exodus 6:3), JAH (Psalm 68:4), in whose “image” and “likeness” (Genesis 1:26) we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139: 14), whose “only begotten son” (John 3:16) is Jesus Christ, with whom we being, “led by the Spirit of God . . . are the sons of God,” “heirs of God” and "joint heirs with Christ" (Rom.8:14, 17); then, there is nothing that can stop us or the 2019 prophesy of our God.

For “the scornful” (Psalms 1:1) who say, God, in Genesis 15:12 14 is talking to Abram, a Hebrew, not to us, the Ethiopians (Cushites) nee “Hamites”, I cite, Amos 9:7, which reads "Are you not as children of the Ethiopians Unto Me, Oh, Children of Israel?" This means that “God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” (Acts 10:34-35). “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Proverbs 1:7) “Fear” meaning to hold God in wondrous awe to the point of abject reverence.

What are righteous works or the “works of God”, O scorner? “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.”( John 6:28-29) For the 2019 revelation to materialize, we must labor. “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh when no man can work.” (John 9:4) Worship, wisdom and work are 2019 essentials. They are the sine qua non of deliverance, salvation and rejoicing for our people in 2019.

Those same skeptics may say, however, “that Genesis 15: 12-14 scripture was written thousands of years ago and this is now.” Or, they may say “that event occurred--God speaking to Abram in a dream--if it indeed occurred at all, thousands of years ago. So, that does not apply, as this is a different time.” I cite them to Ecclesiastes 1:9: "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." This shows that God is no respecter of time. God is “Alpha and Omega the beginning and the ending . . . which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelations 1:8) God is therefore outside of time: before time, on time, in time and after time, like his Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

Neither is God any respecter of place. “The Earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein.” (Psalms 24:1).

Thus, since God is no respecter of person, time, or place, what was said to Abram, in scripture, in ancient times, is directly applicable to African Americans in modern times. Genesis 15:12-14 really prefigures, adumbrates, the experience of Africans in North America. We arrived herein in 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia. So, adding “400 years” to the date of our divine disembarkation, means that Year 2019, according to scripture, is the date of our deliverance, just like the Hebrew children were delivered.

7. THE WORK OF SALVATION


No band of angels will be dispatched, neither will the right hand of God be stretched forth to deliver us from oppression. Only our “own right hand can save” us. (Job 40:14) Why is this so? Because the will of God is done on earth by men and women with a mind to prove what the will of God is! They are willing to die and willing to kill to prove the will of God. I cite Romans 12: 1 2:

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable perfect will of God."

How can we prove it? I cite, Philippians 2:5:
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men."

If the mind of Christ is in you, you become Godlike, you resume and assume your true, hidden and secret identities! Surprised? Read Psalms 82:6 8:

"I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations."

In order for 2019 to come into being, we've got to resume our true identities. We must become Godlike:

And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: Therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. (Genesis 3:22-23)

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. (Genesis 11:5-6)

In this regard, Jesus admonishes us to "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:48) Only then can we achieve a standard that the devil and his henchmen cannot attain. Right now, our standards are far too low. "Thou shall be perfect with the Lord thy God . . . " (Deuteronomy18:13)

To be "perfect" does not necessarily mean to be "good," in the syrupy sense we’ve been programmed to understand it. Jesus rejects the label “good” for himself. He teaches “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” (Matthew 19:17). Clearly, then, “perfect” does not mean “good”, for while Jesus was perfect, he himself rejected the label “good”. Jesus states that man has the power to achieve perfection, if he is willing to make the sacrifice: “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” (Matthew 19:21)

“Perfect” means to be absolutely prepared or totally ready or indisputably suited for whatever situation may arise or be engendered. “I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.” (Psalm 101:2)

In this respect, “perfection” contemplates possessing a faculty of acute discernment: “Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time? Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?” (Luke 12:56-57). Such a faculty of discernment and judgment is exemplified in Ecclesiastes 3:1 8:

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

“2019" will come to pass, if we believe and work in accordance therewith as our Savior instructs:

Verily, verily I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. (John 14:12)

Our faith and works is the key to 2019. As bitter as the pill may be, no war can be won, no victory can be attained if any soldier is afraid to follow the lead of the Supreme Commander’s “example”. “For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:15) What is the ultimate example? It is this: “because he laid down his life for us . . . we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” (1 John 3:16)

8. A LOOK AHEAD


Right now, we are approaching the time of 2019. We are falling under the influence of the Holy Spirit. “If it were not so, I would not have told you.” (John 14:2) If it were not so, God would not have told me. “As the Lord liveth, even what my God saith, that will I speak.” (2 Chronicles 18:13) “2019" is not unique to me. Otherwise, it could not be. It is an “open vision.” (1 Samuel 3:1) It is part of God's plan for the propagation of the True Gospel of Jesus Christ, as opposed to this false Gospel that has been propagated by the Anti Christ for the past 2000 years of his rule. The Anti Christ began to rule, before the Savior was crucified. Jesus said it himself: "And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." (Matthew 11:12) He also said: “Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of the world cometh, and hath nothing in me.” (John 14:30) “They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work, reprobate.” (Titus 1:16)

The revelation of “2019", therefore, is part of a broader Revelation. “No prophesy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter 1: 20-21) The broader revelation is that the nature of Christian faith, itself, so long monopolized and cast in the image of Rome, cannot escape the catharsis of the “2019" exegesis. “2019" will rock the world at its foundation! Why? Because “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40)

The “least of these” certainly have been the Sons and Daughters of Ham, especially those in the Americas, who were brought here “with ships” and sold unto their enemies as “bondmen and bondwomen.” (Deuteronomy 28:68) While Biblical stories abound about the Hebrew Children’s enslavement and forced expatriation into the land of Babylon and the Land of Assyria, the Hebrews were not carried away on ships to a “new world,” by an alien people, as were these Africans.

The Hebrew Children had, after all, long known the Babylonians and the Assyrians. They had intermarried with them. They knew them and their ways. The Hebrew Children went en masse into captivity, over land, with a common tongue, a common creed, common culture, and with families intact.

The Hebrew sojourn in the Land of Egypt, the “Tabernacles of Ham”, (Psalm 78:51) of course, was different. It differed markedly from the Babylonian and Assyrian captivity. Unlike Babylon and Assyria, there was no forced march into Mizraim–“Kemet,” the black land or “Land of the Blacks”–now known by its Greek name, “ Egypt.” “Three score and ten” (Genesis 46:27), i.e., 70, souls came with Jacob into the land of Egypt. Impoverished and starving, the Hebrews came to Mizraim as supplicants, mendicants, stragglers, escaping famine, destitute. They left out of Egypt 600,000 strong, (Exodus 12:37), in men “on foot”, not counting women and children. They left wealthy, for they “spoiled the Egyptians.” (Exod.12:36)


The “careless Ethiopians’” (Ezekiel 30:9) arrival in America, the “new world,” aboard ships is therefore unprecedented in the annals of recorded history. These Africans were from different nations and spoke different tongues. They worshipped different gods. Families were torn apart forever.

These Ethiopians were destined to become “new creatures”, an African amalgam, an American amalgam, homogenized and refined in the crucible of oppression. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

“2019" is the vision that God has given to his swarthy children through me. If there is another vision, let it be written, let it be declared. This 2019 vision is no Holy Ghost boast. “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.” (Proverbs 27:1-2)

In truth, the 2019 vision is a burden. A blessed burden, but a burden notwithstanding. I already know that:

“If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse. Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life. This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.” (Job 9:20-22)

“Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.” (John 12:27) God called me from my mother’s womb to declare the 2019 Revelation. I tried to resist. I fought it. I assayed the consequences. I prayed to the Lord. “And the Lord answered me and said, “Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.” (Habakkuk 2:2) I am no theologian, no Old or New Testament scholar. I’m just a country boy from Canton, Mississippi, that don’t mean no harm. I have, however, been anointed by the Holy Ghost.

“But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” (1 John 2:27)

I offer no apology for the “2019 Revelation.” I declare it boldly and with joy, for it is:

Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you to fulfill the word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labor striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.” (Colossians 1:25-29)



5. CONCLUSION

No great work is created in a vacuum. Multiple influences, known and unknown, went into this work.

I learned black history from the mouth of the late great Dr. John Henrik Clarke, at St. Paul A.M.E. Church in St. Louis, Missouri in 1967, one Saturday morning. Thereafter, the true foundation having been lain, I built upon it by reading all the works of Joel Augustus Rogers, finishing same while an undergraduate at Howard University. While at Howard, I often sat at the feet of Dr. Chancellor Williams, the author of the classic “The Destruction of Black Civilizations,” sipping brandy with him, and listening spell-bound to his great wisdom. A milestone, in the historical sense, came in 1981, when Dr. John G. Jackson, author, Introduction to African Civilizations was a guest in my house in Kansas City, Missouri. Also an astute mathematician, he sent me a geometrical problem to solve, which yet lies unresolved in my correspondence. Along the way, I’ve corresponded with Dr.Cheikh Anta Diop, who was a subscriber to my newsletter, The Nile Review, which he characterized as an “hereusement vulgariste” and I’ve sponsored two of Dr. Ivan Van Sertima’s visits to Kansas City.

That is the historical side of me, in capsule form. It was through history, ironically, that I found God. I went back so far back, back, back that in the total blackness of grasping for truth, I saw the light, and it lifted me to a whole other level.

I have read The Bible from cover to cover. I started reading it, I thought, to enable me to finish writing a novel that I had in progress. I wanted to say something heavy, but lacked the artillery to launch it or the ordinance to propel it. I found them both in God’s word. While I was reading, I also read The Quran. It, too, is a marvelous and sublime and inspiring book.

After reading both books, I published a monograph in The Nile Review, based upon my sense of ecumenism, entitled: “Exhalations from My Soul.” Dr. John Mbiti, author of African Religions and Philosophy, praised that particular work, in correspondence, as did the great spiritual writer, Og Mandino, author of the best-seller, The Greatest Salesman in the World, who simply declared after reading it: “Thoreau Lives.” It is a sufist-type work, one of pure spirit, divorced of petty racial issues. For me there are only four races, and they track the four blood types in the ABO system; A, B, AB, and O. The rest is pretext.

I never finished the novel, by the way. But along the way, I was called to preach. God had another plan for my Bible reading. That plan has reached its fruition in the 2019 Revelation, which is historical and scriptural, temporal and spiritual, scientific and theological, artistic and rhetorical: the panoply of God in man. I have written this piece, because I have no choice:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be call trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he might be glorified. And they shall build up the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. (Isaiah 61:1-4)


May we all behold His Glory in 2019!

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