Howard Thurman,
FOR THE INWARD JOURNEY, “On Viewing the Coast of Africa,”
pp.199-200 (Friends United Press, Richmond, Indiana: 1984)
“From my
cabin window I look out on the full moon, and the ghosts of my
forefathers rise and fall with the undulating waves. Across these
same waters how many years ago they came! What were the inchoate
mutterings locked tight within the circle of their hearts? In the
deep, heavy darkness of the foul-smelling hold of the ship, where
they could not see the sky, nor hear the night noises, nor feel the
warm compassion of the tribe, they held their breath against the
agony.
“How does the
human spirit accommodate itself to desolation? How did they? What
tools of the spirit were in their hands with which to cut a path
through the wilderness of their despair? If only Death of the body
would come to deliver the soul from dying! If some sacred taboo had
been defiled and this extended terror was the consequence—there
would be no panic in the paying. If some creature of the vast and
pulsing jungle had snatched the life away—this would even in its
wildest fear be floated by the familiarity of the daily hazard. If
death had come being ushered into life by a terrible paroxysm of
pain, all the assurance of the Way of the Tribe would have carried
the spirit home on the wings of precious ceremony and holy ritual.
But this! Nothing anywhere in all the myths, in all the stories, in
all the ancient memory of the race had given hint of this tortuous
convulsion. There were no gods to hear, no magic spells of witch
doctor to summon; even one's companion in chains muttered his
quivering misery in a tongue unknown and a sound unfamiliar.
“O my
Fathers, what was it like to be stripped of all supports of life save
the beating of the heart and the ebb and flow of fetid air in the
lungs? In a strange moment, when you suddenly caught your breath, did
some intimation from the future give your spirits a hint of promise?
In the darkness did you hear the silent feet of your children beating
a melody of freedom to words you would never know, in a land where
your bones would be warmed again in the depths of the cold earth in
which you would sleep unknown, unrealized, and alone.”
