I sit here in a writing circle with my team at 7:29pm on a Friday evening. It’s quarantine season and the crowds have returned in Cambridge. We went to the Market today, my daughter and I, and then I came home to work on the Revolution. I’ve been working on this post for months, defining what Black Glory is. It started out as an official definition: Black Glory is the acknowledgment, based on thousands of years of history that Black people are inherently genius, are the progenitors of all forms of sciences, religions, maths, arts, technology… But now, Black Glory is evident all around you. I don’t have to explain it to you any more. You can see it in the way we stand upon the tombs of our Ancestors, regal and gleaming, demanding the tomorrow we’ve always desired, and accepting nothing less. There will be no more Genocide of African people. Those who do harm to us will feel that harm in their bones and will never escape the wrath of our billions of Ancestors, and the God who created us first.
We are glorious because we were made that way. We were created to be the aspiration of all people. This is why every race of people has come to us seeking wealth. We are the fountain of life. Many people are cracking open history books in this era, learning about Blackness. The trials and tribulations of Black people. The trauma we’ve suffered. The harm that has been done to us. Make sure you don’t stop there. Make sure you reach back to Black Jerusalem, Black Tokyo, Black Mexico. Study the origins of humanity. Read Cheikh Ante Diop, WEB DuBois, Africa and Africans as Seen by Classical Writers, really read Malcolm X’s words and listen to his speeches. Listen to Lauryn Hill’s Unplugged Album. If you do not engage with these minds, you may never truly understand the history of Black people, nor our future, what has been prophesied for millennia.
Black Glory is essentially the fact that people of African descent are responsible for all the world’s wealth, genius, innovation, and advancement. That our skin holds the keys to unlocking the new world, in which abundance prevails, justice is natural and freedom is uncontested.
Afterword: The phrase Black Glory came to me as I assembled the collection films and digital art we selected for the NOIR FEST preview at the second annual Yale Africa Film Festival. We needed a name for the collection, and nothing felt more accurate, for the way they made me feel reminded me of Glory.
