Living a Life of Love and Struggle: Keeping the Faith and Holding the Line – Los Angeles Sentinel lasentinel.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from lasentinel.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Mrs. Hamer, Nana Fannie Lou Hamer, had an abiding faith and hope in the power and promise of our people, and in a struggled for and eventually achieved freedom, justice and shared good for everyone, indeed all the peoples of the world. Thus, she urges us to continue the struggle, keep the faith and hold the line saying, “One day I know the struggle will (bring) change” and it will “be change not only in Mississippi (and) for the people of the U.S., but (also for) people all-over the world”. This has been the center of our faith, hope and struggle as African people, Black people, since we arrived here. And on this sacred ground of faith, hope and struggle, let us continue and intensify the struggle, keep the faith, hold the line, living and advancing the legacy she left us with such uplifting love and liberating practice.
And thus, we must be all-seasons soldiers, for until this wanton killing of Black people is decisively stopped, Nana Ella Baker teaches us “We who believe in freedom cannot rest”. Thus, our struggle was and remains not only to secure justice for Nana George Floyd and our people as a whole, but also to secure our liberation. For again, as Haji Malcolm teaches, without freedom we cannot achieve real justice. Indeed, freedom from an oppressive system is our larger and ongoing aim and struggle, regardless of the particular battlefield, we are compelled to fight on in our awesome march and movement towards full and final liberation. And this realization and reaffirmation in righteous and relentless struggle is at the heart of the moral imperative of remembrance and resistance deeply rooted in the lives, history and culture of our people.
In this month of remembering, raising up and reflecting on our awesome making and movement through history, it is good to remind our ourselves, society and the world of the sacred agency of our people. For this is central and essential to our identity, purpose and direction as persons and a people.
It is a beautiful memory and uplifting thought to realize our organization Us was conceived in the fiery and formative womb of the August 1965 Revolt of our people and emerges and comes into being in the aftermath of our people’s continuing efforts and struggles to end police brutality and violence, economic and other exploitation, and the White supremacy and systemic racism that produce, sanction and foster these and other forms of anti-Black and anti-other oppression.