How Do We as Black People Free Ourselves from Mental Slavery? The Feature Address by Sir Clare K. Roberts, QC, of Human Rights for All at St Paul’s Church Emancipation Service - 2015 August 2.

Thank you, Father Reid Simon, for allowing me the opportunity of voicing some of my views to this St Paul’s congregation on this Emancipation Sunday, 2015.

I will tell you a secret as my church family: Of all the accolades and degrees that I may have acquired over my life, there is one that I hold dearest and that is “CFL”. It is what I used to plant my feet back on firm ground when I was talking to Presidents and other important people all over the world, especially in Latin America and even today in talking to you. Even though I did very little to earn those letters, it is what I am proud of - CFL.

It was 181 years ago that slavery was abolished in Antigua. For other islands in the Caribbean there was a period of apprenticeship so for them full emancipation came 4 years later. It is said that there was no need for apprenticeship in Antigua because drought had brought about such a dependency between slave owners and slaves that there was no fear of labour shortage, thus Antiguan slaves were fully emancipated on August 1, 1834.

As Father Reid mentioned, I was the Rapporteur for Afro Descendants and Against Racism and Racial Discrimination as a member of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights. For 8 years I went to all the countries of Latin American visiting Afro Descendants in their own habitats - in Brazil, Columbia, Peru, Haiti, Costa Rica, USA and Canada pressing the point that Afro descendants should not be treated as second class citizens. And I can tell you that the plight of black people in the Western Hemisphere is still one of discrimination and marginalization. Black people are marginalized and are still virtually invisible in the Western Hemisphere. The press and social media have recently highlighted evidence of raw racism in the United States of America – where the President is treated with open disrespect almost on a daily basis. The best president the USA ever had is treated this way because he is black. And in the United States it seems that the police think black people are fair game; and a young man, bred on racism, having been welcomed in a prayer meeting, turned on and deliberately killed 8 worshippers because they were black.

In Antigua, racism and racial discrimination are more complex. Here we have both racism and what I call “shadism”. We still curse each other about our skin colour. “Move you Black self!”, “She so ugly and black!” Or we talk about “Di black one”.

How did we get to this position? And how do we move forward?

First let me start with a declaration – I love Black people. I am happiest when I am in Kenya, or Senegal or Ghana, or Harlem or Haiti anywhere Black people are. Black is truly beautiful. But we have been conditioned over the period of colonialism, including the period of slavery, to hate ourselves and the colour of our skin. We have been conditioned to believe that we are inferior to other races. I am sure you remember your childhood where you were told of good hair and bad hair and the good hair was the long straight hair and the bad hair was the woolly hair that was attributed to so many in the Bible including God himself – but more of that later.

The bad one in the family was the black sheep; we know the expression, the pot calling the kettle black; the worst day of our lives we call the blackest day of our lives; and I am sure you can think of many other instances where “black” is used with negative connotation. But I was reminded that when you are in the black financially, that is a good thing.

I am sure that you would have seen illustrations in Bibles and usually all the characters in these Bible illustrations are pure white, blue eyed Caucasians, with the exception of Judas who, of course, is portrayed as black. The picture of Jesus on the wall in our living rooms was white with long flowing straight hair. I want to introduce you to another view. Here is the African Heritage Study Bible – the General Editor is Rev Cain Hope Felder, Phd. (Rev Felder and our own Rev Kortright Davis gave a lecture here in Antigua recently on the Theology of Inclusion). You will notice that in the African Heritage Bible all the illustrations are of black people – Moses, David, Noah, Job are all black and in the New Testament, Jesus and all of his disciples, the prodigal son, the widow of the Widow’s mite are all black. We have to start to expose ourselves and our children to these counter psychological views, if we are to break the chain of mental/psychological slavery.

Hollywood has done its fair share in brainwashing us. The movie, “Cleopatra” starred Elizabeth Taylor, a white woman: when in fact Cleopatra, who ruled Egypt, was a black woman; Moses in the movie “The Ten Commandments”, which I am sure we have all seen, Charleston Heston, a white man, starred as Moses, but Moses, the actual historical person who led the children of Israel out of Egypt, was an Egyptian-Hebrew black man.

Emancipation was freedom from physical bondage but the mental slavery continued and continues to this day. How do we free ourselves from this mental slavery? Marcus Garvey talked about freeing ourselves from mental slavery. Bob Marley popularized Garvey’s Quote in “Redemption Song” when he sang, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds”. Na’im Akbar wrote a book called Breaking the Chains of Psychological Slavery. In that book he summarized his theory thus,

     “Slavery was ‘legally’ ended in excess of 100 years ago, but over 300 years experienced in its          brutality and unnaturalness constituted a severe psychological and social shock in the minds of African-Americans. This shock was so destructive to natural life processes that the current generation of African-Americans, although we are five to six generations removed from the actual experience of slavery, still carry the scars of this experience in both our social and mental lives. Psychologists and sociologists have failed to attend to the persistence of problems in our mental and social lives which clearly have roots in slavery. Only the historian has given proper attention to the shattering realities of slavery, and he has dealt with it only as descriptive of past events. 

“In order to fully grasp the magnitude of our current problems, we must reopen the books on the events of slavery. Our objective should not be to cry stale tears for the past nor to rekindle old hatreds for past injustices. Instead, we should seek to enlighten our path of today by better understanding where and how the lights were turned out yesterday”. 

Incidentally, The idea of using the past to understand the present and to push you forward is represented by a Ghanaian symbol called Sankofa.

Our past does not start with slavery. We as Afro descendants have every cause to be proud of being black. We are not descendants of slaves but rather descendants of Africans who were enslaved. Our history and lineage go back well before the unfortunate era of slavery.

We are “heirs to freedom and unmeasured lands” as the hymn writer puts it in CPWI, Hymn 453.

Reverend Kenneth L Waters, Sr wrote a book called Afrocentric Sermons, where he reproduced his sermons on “The Beauty of Blackness in the Bible”. There, in a scholarly fashion, Reverend Waters showed that there are black people in the Bible. There are in fact more black people in the Bible than any other people. Some of these black people might surprise you – Moses, Solomon and Queen of Sheba (She herself said, “I am black and beautiful), Adam and Eve, the father and mother of all humanity, were black, Ham was black as was Noah; Mary, Jesus’s mother was a black woman, Jesus is said to be black, and I need to mention one of Father Reid Simon’s heroes, Paul was a black man. I leave you to ponder on Acts 21 verses 37-39 for evidence that Paul was black. I also ask that you ponder on Ezekiel 1 verse 27, Daniel 7 verse 9 and Revelation 1:12-16.

My first degree was history at the University of the West Indies. I studied History for 3 years but I was never exposed to the great kingdoms and civilizations of North, West or Central Africa. At no time, either at Cobbs Cross School, St Michael School or Antigua Grammar School, was I taught about the African contribution to world civilizations and culture both ancient and modern. We were not taught about the great scholars, scientists and artists of Africa. I quote from one of Reverend Waters sermons, “Black people have been the most creative people on the face of the earth, and it was from us - our African forefathers and fore mothers – that the world learned everything that has to do with culture and civilization”.

We were the first civilizations – cities of Thebes and Memphis in ancient Egypt and the West African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay.

We built the first universities – the mystery schools of ancient Egypt, University of Sankore in Timbuktu and the great West African educational centres at Kumbi-Saleh and Gao.

We were the first scientists: Imhotep who was the father of Medicine centuries before the Greek Hippocrates.

We were the first architects and builders – For example Zoser, pharaoh of Egypt. We built the of pyramids.

We were the first navigators and explorers – like Abubakar II, King of Mali, whose fleet voyaged to the Americas 181 years before Christopher Columbus.

We were the first teachers and poets, like Aesop or Ethiop, the famed teller of fables and proverbs.

“No shame I know of lesser breed or hue but claim my birthright, said the Pongo man” (CPWI Hymn 453.

These facts need to be taught to our youths so that they can raise their self esteem and eradicate their self-hate. Our young people need to be grounded. They need to be taught their roots.

My message this morning on this 181st Emancipation Sunday is that we all should be walking out of church at the end of this service with a chirpier walk – with a sense of self-worth, with our self-esteem at its highest knowing that we are sons and daughters of kings and queens and we are from a line of great black people.

I leave with you that whatever our skin colour, black, brown, red, white or yellow, we are all made in the image of God and we share in the same spiritual colour. So whatever colour Love is, that is the colour of God and we should all strive to be God’s spiritual colour.