Affirmation

Every morning I give my son a special affirmation, and for this MLK Day I gave him one from my mother. As a boy I would hear her say whenever I faced mistreatment:

“Go to where you are celebrated, and not just tolerated.”

This phrase was more than words to soothe my wounded feelings. It was a proverb that my mother lived, and continues to live, as Black people have done for centuries. Though we have needed to make good impressions for survival, we have never been a people to settle for tables of tolerence. We have walked away to build tables of our own, and this is the heart and main point of Dr. King’s dream.

Tables

As I prepared to give my son the words that I once heard from his grandmother, I began to think of the tables that existed in our family. Some of them are moments past preserved in photo albums, while others are places and heirlooms handed down from loving Elders. In my closet is a dress shirt and a handkerchief from my grandfather, which he wore on days without a feast or special celebration. He would tell me, “Though life will go bad, you should never look like a vagabond. Good things will eventually come to you, so dress well to receive them”. This is the reason I rarely dress casual in public. My formal flare is an act of joy and hopeful celebration.

Another table in my family is the story of my great-grandfather, Nonc George Mathis Williams, from whom my son gets his middle name. At the height of Jim Crow in southern Louisiana, he purchased land and built a house for his wife and children in Pointe-Coupée. These things remain in our family to this very day, and are testaments to the truth of Black life which is more than pain and struggle. They show that to be what we are is a mix of beauty and brokenness, and even in the darkest times we are free to choose the former.

Looking back to Dr. King one will not just see a prophet, but a person who chose beauty and boldly enjoyed his blessings. In addition to pictures of him on a stage or at a pulpit, one can see him off of the mountaintop and in the valley like the rest of us. There is a smiling boy and a student at Morehouse College, or a husband on his wedding day and a father with his children. Each picture shows Dr. King at a table of celebration, and enjoying the freedom he mentioned as he closed his speech in Washington.

What I Have Built

On this year’s MLK Day my son and I gazed at the tables that I have built. They are a children’s book with a story from our ancestors, and pictures hanging in his room that I painted to bring the tale to life. But along with this story is my story as a father, and before that as a husband, brother, son, and other roles that I am blessed to have. I pray that this will help my son choose beauty over brokenness, and to never settle for toleration in spaces that reject his heart and mind.

Our people are often wanted for their talents but not their hearts and minds, and the dream of Dr. King was a day when this would not be so. He imagined a world where we could sit at tables beyond our own, and find our thoughts and feelings embraced and celebrated with respect and love.