What's on the Mind of the Easterbaby?

Did you know there was a Bible Museum in DC? I haven't been yet but maybe one day I will go. Funny thing about me, I don't watch biblical movies anymore. Those creative folks have a way of recreating the bible to either fit a certain narrative and/or create scenarios that are not documented or true. For example, there was a made for TV movie shown many years ago about Noah and the Great Flood. In this movie, Noah and Lot were best friends. I never understood why they felt the need to insert this impossible scenario into the movie. Anyhoo, that's just one example. One thing that is true from the bible that we've gotten correct is God is a promoter of monuments and record keeping. If you look in the Old Testament, more often than not, when something significant happened to someone in the bible, they erected a memorial or monument that would be a witness to the next generations. In the 1st & 2nd Book of Kings, the reigns of all the Kings of Israel and Judah were record...

D.E.I How three little letters are causing such a commotion. We don't have to travel back that far in time to understand why we need programs that support DEI. Let's look at one of the biggest discrimination practices known as REDLINING (or Anti-DEI in the housing). So what is this big ol' scary monster...  DIVERSITY. The state of being diverse which is showing a great deal of variety; very different. EQUITY. The quality of being fair and impartial. INCLUSION. The action or state of including or of being included within a group or structure. I'm trying to find the trigger in these words but I can't. But I bet I CAN find a scripture that supports D.E.I. Surely, if the Lord is ok with it then... Oh well! Imma stand on the Lord's side.  1 Corinthians 12:12-27,  12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by[a] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave ...

This past week, I saw articles online stating that Arlington National Cemetery has deleted information on it's website that references Black, Hispanic, and women veterans in order to comply with DEI Executive Orders. One of those servicemembers whose biography was part of the deletion is Vietnam Army Medic Lawrence Joel. Joel received the Silver Star and the Medal of Honor for his heroism in a that occurred on November 8, 1965. He was the first medic to earn the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War and the first living black American to receive this medal since the Spanish–American War in 1898. So why am I mentioning him? Well, Lawrence Joel was born and raised in Winston-Salem, NC, my hometown. In 1986, construction of a new coliseum began and the city gave it the name, the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum (most of us from Winston just call it, "Lawrence Joel"). Anyhoo, for the African American community this was significant and it gave us a great sense of pride...

In elementary school, I remember we had the chance once a week to go to music period. We learned different songs and to play the Kudzu (aka the recorder). Do kids still do that? When we learned songs, it was a given that we were going to learn the patriotic songs, like The Star Bangled Banner, America the Beautiful, and My Country Tis Of Thee. Never knew what "Tis of Thee" was but I do recall singing it loud and proud along with the rest of my classmates. Remember it, "My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims' pride, From ev'ry mountainside, Let freedom ring!" Let Freedom Ring became a popular phrase from Dr. Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream Speech (side note: one of these days, we're gonna talk about that speech b/c yall ain't talking about but one part of it). Anyhoo, there are those who really believed in letting freedom ring and then there are those who don't ...

On this Sunday, I was thinking how much I miss football. During football season (Aug - Feb), Thursdays thru Mondays are all about football. But it's March, so I'm back to watching all the HGTV shows. NFL fans look forward to Super Bowl Sunday BUT we all know after that, television is sad again. LOL!  Folks get so into the Super Bowl that they have campaigned for the Monday after to be a holiday.  My favorite named Sunday, of course, is Resurrection or Easter Sunday (and if you don't know why, you and I probably don't have a personal relationship 😆. It's cool though, b/c my blog is for everyone!) Now, on 2nd Sun in March, 60 years ago was another event but it was a far cry from the grandeur and spectacle of Super Bowl Sunday or the Holiness of Resurrection Sunday... well, it was a spectacle but nothing grand or holy about it. It was so UN-GRAND and so UN-HOLY, that it was given the name BLOODY SUNDAY!  March 7, 1965, also known as BLOODY SUNDAY, state troopers bruta...

Who remembers the HBO series, Lovecraft Country? It was a weird mix of horror, scifi, drama, and history! It was entertaining and I watched until the end. Even though, it provided lots of history of Black people in this country, I feared that all the other fictional chaos & strange shenanigans would take away from the fact, that they were indeed sharing black history. For instance, how African American military was treated here after having served this country, the tragic story of Emmitt Till, and Sundown Towns to name a few. In the first episode, the main characters got caught after sunset in a sundown town and the racist sheriff and his deputies set out to lynch them... all for "driving while black" after dark. Wish I could say, this was only a story from the television show, but nope, Sundown Towns were and in some areas of the country, still a reality. (BTW - the deputies were killed by monsters... so there's that! 😁) Between 1890 and 1968, thousands of towns acr...

"Although we've come to the end of the road, Still, I can't let go! It's unnatural, you belong to me, I belong to you. Come to the end of the road, Still, I can't let go, It's unnatural, you belong to me, I belong to you."  ~ End of the Road by Boyz to Men It's funny how this song popped into my head as I thought about the End of the Road for Jim Crow. Actually just the first line of the chorus. LOL! Then I read the whole chorus and thought, hmmmmm... there are folks who, knowing how UNNATURAL it is to hate a group of people b/c their skin color is different, just can't let it go. Now here we are in 2025, facing the same fight, fighting the same struggles b/c folks just don't want to let it go. 😑 As oppressive as the Jim Crow era was, it was also a time when many African Americans around the country stepped forward into leadership roles to vigorously oppose the laws. Memphis teacher Ida B. Wells became a prominent activist against Jim Crow law...

Rules, rules, and more rules! The Lord only gave Moses TEN COMMANDMENTS to share with the Israelites after they were delivered from Egypt. Later in the New Testament, Jesus said that all the Commandments could be summed up in TWO: 34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[c] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[d] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matt. 22:34-40) Now if two Commandments were good enough for Jesus then how did it come to pass that freed black people had to live under a slew of these ridiculous Jim Crow Laws. Clearly the Lord was not consulted when this was established. In fact, it sounds a littl...

As I mentioned in the previous posts, for the longest time, I thought Jim Crow was a person... an evil person who made up these oppressive laws against Black People. Isn't that something? A whole set of laws passed just to keep the now "free" black people in their proper place as 2nd class citizens (more like 22nd class citizens if you ask me). Jim Crow lasted through to the 1960s which means my parents, aunts, uncles, and other older relatives lived this life. So it's funny to me when people want to act like it didn't happen or that it happened so many years ago that we should forget. Naw, cause my mama done told me all about it and I believe my mama! She hasn't forgotten and neither will I.  Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws, it was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans...