The 2024 Black History Month theme is “African Americans and the Arts.” Bisa Butler is a role model for this theme; her quilted-fabric art, The Safety Patrol, reflects the potential of seven children. Butler’s central figure wears a sash depicting his leadership and caretaking of children as they prepare to cross a street safely. The lettering “OK” (on a diagonal on the leader’s shirt) and his left yellow eye are details that Butler further suggests are showing protection for his young charges. Her exquisite fabric art captivates audiences with a sense of determination and resilience displayed in each stitching of color-filled faces. Her figures appear ready to leap off their multi-layered wall hangings with intention.
Intentions have power. Lester Strong, leaving a broadcasting career where he won Emmys for public affairs programming, holds positive intentions for youth resilience. He initiated community dialogues between young people and police officers in Kingston, NY (The Peaceful Guardians Project). Strong was CEO of AARP Experience Corps, offering tutoring and mentoring by adults (55+ years-young) to elementary school children who struggle with reading. The program reached 35,000 students in 23 cities throughout the U.S.
Strong also was Chief Development Officer for BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life) Foundation which targeted tutoring for underserved children in 5 cities (Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, New York, and Springfield, MA). Yet in another CEO post, for SYDA (Siddha Yoga) Foundation, Strong advocates the teaching of global yoga and meditation in 46 countries.
A rising Black leader, this time a historian with a specialty in Southern U.S. and African American history, Brenda Elaine Stevenson, is professor in African-American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Author of several books, Stevenson published What Sorrows Labour in My Parents’ Breast? A History of the Enslaved Black Family in 2023. She quotes Phillis Wheatley, whose poetry provided the title to Stevenson’s book. Wheatley is only one of thousands of enslaved individuals whose determined leadership fueled a resilient adaptation to the so-called “new” world.
Stevenson addresses how slavery forced Black families to make many sacrifices to keep any semblance of family life: “Enslavement did not destroy the Black family. Black people survived and survive today because of families, regardless of how these families may differ structurally and sometimes functionally from the families of other people in our society…our nation still struggles to recognize and respect Black humanity.”
Families of every ethnic background struggle today. And families who stereotype others also struggle whether they are conscious of their prejudice or not. We travel a rocky road to put Martin Luther King, Jr’s dream foremost in our hearts: “…a dream that…little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character.” Call me an optimist, but I believe it’s possible.
Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz
267. When have you experienced separations from your family’s “homeland”?
268. What is your experience of recognizing your stereotypes of those who seem “different” from your family?
Pearls of Peace: A Family Psychologist’s Circle-of-Life Blog 