Reclaiming Ourselves

Black America, we are at a critical crossroads. The weight of our collective history - rooted in struggle, brilliance, resilience, and unbreakable faith in our future - demands that we summon the spirits of Harriet, Malcolm, Martin, Frederick, Sojourner, Fannie Lou, Medgar, and yes, even Obama. These ancestors were not monolithic in belief or strategy, but they each shared a common thread: an unwavering commitment to our liberation. The time has come to honor that legacy not with slogans or symbols, but with a conscious and radical shift in how we engage our resources, our priorities, and ourselves.

We cannot expect liberal white allies... however well-meaning... to carry this burden. The soul of our freedom has always rested in our own hands. This is not a call to arms, but a call to minds, to spirit, to intentional reinvestment in ourselves. We have spent centuries sowing into institutions that do not sow back. Chief among them is the church, where billions are poured each month through tithes and offerings, only for those funds to vanish into sermons and symbols instead of schools, housing, health care, and ownership. What has four centuries of devotion to a colonizer’s religion produced for us, besides hope deferred and prosperity preached from pulpits while poverty ravages pews?

We must ask, with clarity and courage: how long will we cling to mythologies born of Roman empires and European power structures, waiting for saviors who will not come? The story was never ours, and its promises have always come with chains. We’ve waited long enough. The answer is not in the sky... it’s in our hands, our minds, our neighborhoods, our wallets, and our will.

This is our moment to reimagine community not through borrowed faith but through tangible investment, collective ownership, and unshakable self-determination. We must divest from systems that do not serve us and redirect every dollar, every ounce of energy, into building institutions that reflect who we are and where we’re going. No outside force is going to rescue us... and no divine figure needs to. We are the answer to our ancestors' prayers. But only if we choose to wake up and build.