Oh Happy Day!

⚡️Good Morning, Beautiful💫

“Rise and shine with purpose. Your ancestors navigated stars. You carry their light within you.”  Morningpic.com

In the Spotlight:

Black women and spirituality

Signs you may be spiritual

Some notes on African and African American Easter History and Tradition (with beautiful iconic pictures)

Do you remember…the Easter Speech? Oh, that speech! Check it out.

History

Learn about the fascinating southern Easter Rocker tradition! Here’s a scholarly take on it; and here’s an actual video excerpt from an Easter Rock ceremony in Winnsboro, Louisiana and another.

Culture

Setting your Easter table

Entertainment

A wonderful orchestral tribute to Curtis Mayfield

Religious hypocrisy, the profane, and white evangelicals. This is funny—that’s why it’s entertainment.

In Memoriam:

Lou Gossett, Jr. was a wonderful thespian who had a powerful career playing meaningful characters, starting with the play, A Raisin in the Sun.

Books and Literature

Ever wonder about the various spiritual practices of Blacks all over the Diasporic Americas? Working the Spirit: Ceremonies of the African Diaspora by Joseph M. Murphy renders an accessible and scholarly understanding of the Black Church, Haitian Vodou, Jamaican Revival Zion, Brazilian Candomble, and Cuban Santeria.

Sports

Black rodeo culture

Heartbreaking: Brazilian star Vinícius endures vicious racism and is reduced to tears.

March Madness rolls on

In Memoriam:

A beloved former Kansas City Chiefs cheerleader, Krystal Anderson, died after a stillborn birth. She was a software engineer and patent holder whose work contributed to advancing healthcare. (Black maternal healthcare continues to be a critical issue to which we must pay attention.)

Science

April’s astrology of renewal

Mental Wellness

An incredibly moving article that depicts how a mother—the beautiful Regina King—is dealing with losing her child as she promotes her new movie about Shirley Chisholm

Just get started!

Humor

Hiding in plain sight

Find Peace

The magnificent Alvin Ailey Dancers—Wading in the Water

Healing Our Community: Group Therapy

Their Eyes Were Watching God

By Dr. Rhonda Sherrod

Zora Neale Hurston’s classic, timeless work, Their Eyes Were Watching God, exhorts us to take a chance, leave misery behind, and seriously quest for our own fulfillment and true identity, as the novel’s protagonist, Janie Crawford, did. We are exhorted to come home to ourselves. With Hurston’s dire warning that time “mocks” all of us, what better time is there to take stock of what this journey is all about than right now—during this Resurrection Season. This is about looking into your heart and finding what has likely been lying there dormant, all along, beneath the trauma, pain, and harshness of this life. It’s about resurrecting ourselves.

When you contemplate and process what you really want out of this existence, whose voice are you listening to—yours or someone else’s? The essence of freedom is knowing oneself, and, yes, you are right—none of this will be easy, but it is worth contemplating. Are you happy? What pleases you? What sparks your creativity and joy? Are you pursuing those things? Are you doing “your thing,” or are you trying to impress or live someone else’s dreams? A meaningful life is the one you came here to lead, but only you know what that means. Only you can decode you.

Zora Neale Hurston’s website notes that Their Eyes Were Watching God was first “dismissed” as a woman’s novel when it was published in 1937. As an aside, it is fitting that such an expression of Black female liberation was written while Zora was in Haiti, the first free, independent Black nation in the Western Hemisphere. It is also interesting to recognize how Zora was treated, as we witness and combat all the vicious, open attacks on Black women by the lunatic right wing clowns, as well as the assaults on women’s reproductive rights and freedoms.

And it is true. One look at some of the early criticism of Zora’s work tells us that her thoughts were not taken seriously—not because they were not good, but because they were the thoughts of a Black woman. Her brilliant work was “dismissed” because a racist, misogynistic culture always foolishly questions what a Black woman, or any woman, could possibly tell a white man. Well, almost 100 years later, smart people in this very culture are uttering some iteration of, “If you want to know, ask a Black woman.” But many Black people have always known that.

The truth is that Black women have been master psychologists throughout this American experiment because, over the years, we have had to demonstrate keen awareness and understanding of everyone’s emotions in order to stay alive and to help keep our families safe. All too often, Black women have had to either suppress their knowledge in front of others, or watch as other people stole their ideas and made them their own, so make no mistake about it. Black women have never had the luxury (?) of being dimwitted and we have never believed that “ignorance is bliss.”

As for Zora Neale Hurston, ever since Alice Walker unearthed her profound writings, found her grave, put a marker there in 1973 (Hurston died penniless), and proclaimed her a genius, she has been rediscovered. Jabari Asim writes that, “Today she is revered as a peerless raconteur and intrepid investigator of culture and ritual, and author of the great American novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.”

An anthropologist who studied at both Howard and Barnard, Zora Neale Hurston was opposed to the Brown v. Board of Education decision, and against integrating public schools. While that may sound radical, if we look at the state of public education and how it is criminally failing young Black students in urban cities and rural areas, one has no choice but to rethink what society is doing to our kids, apparently with our permission. Born in Notasulga, Alabama, Zora grew up in Eatonville, Florida’s first incorporated Black township. There, observing Black accomplishment, governance, and success, she learned Black self-sufficiency, and her mother famously told her to “jump at the sun.”

This year, The SHE Newsletter intends to continue delving deep into the failure of the public education system in this country because serious harm is taking place, and we all know it. As regressive, cruel political figures continue to strenuously push back on the progress Black people have made, Black communities must be strong. There was a time when schoolteachers were jewels in our communities because we fully understood the nexus between knowledge, freedom, and power. Our greatest public teachers have been dazzling intellects—Ida, Malcolm, Martin, DuBois, Mary McCleod Bethune, Mary Church Terrell, and the list goes on far too extension to name. Isn’t it time to get back to what we know? Education is critical. There is so much our youth must know before they can even begin to understand the white supremacist ideology they are up against.

Sometimes it seems overwhelming, but the best place to start is right where we are. Educate yourself about whatever you want to do, and take a chance on you. As we know, time waits for no one, and evil forces don’t quit. I so appreciate all the smart, passionate, and committed people who read this Newsletter. You have responded with beautiful words, and you have asked that we keep the knowledge and encouragement flowing. Someday, it will all work out. Some day we will all be free.

For now, during Easter 2024, have a beautiful, meaningful Resurrection Day, and let’s get back at it on Monday.

“When I discover who I am, I will be free.” Ralph Ellison, author

The essence of this revised piece first ran in a January, 2023 edition of The SHE Newsletter, and it is reprinted here, by popular demand. I revised and repurposed it for the Easter (Resurrection) Season.

MORE HEALING:

• Beyonce is slaying, and whether you are a fan or not, it’s thrilling to see a Black woman refusing to let others define her. The fact that, in the process, she is reclaiming a big part of our musical history is icing on the cake. You go, Bey.

• Black people are at an inflection point. Harvard Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad and others recently discussed some of the present peril.

  Also, we need to reignite a robust discussion about racial coalitions and exactly what it means when people use the expression “people of color?” Here is an excellent conversation starter, The Mythological People of Color Coalition, by noted poet and author, Professor C. Liegh McInnis.

SHE (Surviving, Healing, and Evolving)

“Unlocking Healing, Fearlessness, and Freedom”

🤎

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Be Well

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