Black Body and Soul
As a Publisher/Editor who’s charged to bring enlightening ideas to readers, it’s a rarity that I momentarily discover insightful and rewarding prose in my pursuit of enlightenment that brings out of me a resounding WOW and YES! In The Charleston Chronicle, Hakim Abdul Ali’s “As I See It column, ‘Body and Soul,'” Page 7, Hakim Abdul Ali has written about the “Body and Soul of Africa and all of her descendants scattered throughout the earth.”
Below is an excerpt:
I’m thinking of the heritage of Afro-Americans and their ancestors. It’s a reality that very seldom leaves my consciousness. The knowledge of my ancestors and their ever-lasting courage and strength during and after slavery has great importance to me in my daily flow of thinking.
Africa and all of her descendants scattered throughout the earth makes me think deeper about man’s criminal inhuman injustices towards his fellow man.
Africans are a mystical entity in some ways and are unknown to some “colored” folk, but the legacy of the Motherland has always been on my radar screen of remembrances because Black “Our- Story” is a persistent vibration in my mind. I mean that with all my “Body and Soul.”
I love the Motherland, so I have to passionately embrace the sweetness of being Black and proud. It is with sensual humility that I do this because the mental impressions of those ancestors’ struggles lingers in my heart and mind with a heaviness that’s hard to describe.
Just the distant thoughts of the slave ships’ bottoms alone, packed with innocent ebony souls, makes me feel an unseen anger that still resides in my “Body and Soul” now without escapism. Sometimes, I wonder how in the world did my African ancestors survive in those torrid Middle Passage cruises to the detention plantations of the West.
The above snippet taken from the article is just a glimpse of why I recommend reading Hakim’s thoughts. His reasonings bring clarity to unabashed pride and pain of Africans and their descendants who were torn from their Motherland. Hakim doesn’t dwell on LOUD discourse. He brings soberness and clarity to what we “hue-mans” know to be Truth.
Brother Ronn Bunn, You’ve always been in the forefront of advocating togethernees and for advancing our unified need for unity. This has always been done since the late ’70s with a distinct soulful flair for informing the Black masses’ minds and hearts. I humbly thank you for your kind words and for the enthusiastic journalistic foresight you have in what you do. Continue on the path ahead my brother. Thanks for everything. Never forget that educating all that “Blackness” is a universal dutiful task that we, who are conscious, must continue to do. And you and routes-mag.com certainly belong in that noble category. Peace.
Thanks so much Ron for your keen insight, words and thoughts. I appreciate the time and energy that you put into publishing Routes. You do an AMAZING JOB. You write from your heart and soul and I feel you. Thanks Imam Hakim Abdul-Ali for your Beautifully crafted article. It touched my spirit.