When I was 19 years old, I petitioned the leaders for an inclusive educational program to orientate me towards myself. I wasn’t qualified to make a request for such a program, but I tried anyway. I was just a student from Ballou Senior High which some say, was the worst school in DC at the time. If I told them, that my only qualification was that I was called to this world before I swam like a fish in my mother’s womb, ah, that wouldn’t have gone over too well.  My orientation in America has always been from slavery to civil rights and because of that approved historical approach; I am looked upon as having less value.

Before the age of seven I saw four men shot to death. Their lives had value, but in a community under assault since the founding of the country, that value is still a national topic. My elders and I have marched to be recognized and to have God given freedoms in this country, like to sit at a lunch counter, vote and pursue a life of full equality. Yet, we come from a community where everyone knows someone who has died from the devastating killer, AIDS. It’s a community where you know several people serving jail terms. In our community mothers cry and bury their sons in massive numbers. In this 400 hundred year old fight, we still feel we must remind people that “Black Lives Matter.”

I petitioned the leaders and asked, “Is there an orientation other than the plantation that has value?” What can we teach ourselves and the world about the children of Africa that has value? Ancestral value of any kind seems to be the missing narrative. I am a historical enthusiast by nature. So, I went to the “Book of Records”, and sought the beginning — and in the ancient testimonial account I saw the value of all the nations created by God. Even today you read about Shem’s children and Japheth’s children, and you see them today on and off the screen having great wealth. But where is the narrator that speaks of Ham’s children?

We read in the books of Shem that the Most High took one from his line and called him His own. We also read in the testimonial accounts that through Shem’s line, “…all the families of the earth will be blessed.” The ancient descendants of Shem has handed us many books as a witness of accounts. It is even written that Jesus comes from the line of Shem.

We know the great value of Japheth’s children. Every President of the United States save one was from the line of Japheth. The empire of Rome and the ancient Greeks are also from the same line. We read in the Bible, “(From these the maritime peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations…)” All of the Bishops of Rome save one are from the line of Japheth. It was the maritime peoples who went forth to explore new worlds, and in that pursuit they brought my ancestors to this hemisphere. This is where the new world starts my value and education as a descendent of Ham — that orientation is a tragedy.

But I petitioned for my value and asked the leaders high and low, “Can you tell me something about my ancestors a thousand years before those ships?”

Ancient testimonial account records, “Japheth… and his sons, for their generations’ forever five great islands, and a great land in the north. But it is cold, and the land of Ham is hot, and the land of Shem is neither hot nor cold, but it is of blended cold and heat.” If you know what happens to you at the beach in the summer, then you know what happened to Ham’s children.

David writes in Psalms, “Israel entered Egypt; Jacob lived as an alien in the land of Ham.”

The ancient prophet Nahum asks, “Are you better than Thebes, situated on the Nile, with water around her? The river was her defense, the waters her wall. Ethiopia and Egypt were her boundless strength; Put and Libya were among her allies.”

I’ve never in my life saw Ethiopia and Egypt having boundless strength as a reinforced image. Where are the narrators that I may tell them of this history and my true value? In the account of Moses it says of Egypt, “But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”

I had to read it again, God said, “… I have raised you up for this very purpose…” This was told to the nation in the hot land. Shall we show that orientation – that all of earth’s nations have truly played a wonderful part of this existence? Shall we teach our children some uplifting truth to go along with the depressing stories of oppression? Then we won’t need to tell them that “Black Lives Matter”– they would already know? I petitioned for my value and the leader’s hands were tied, but I sought and found the best historical references concerning my ancestors. I was astonished but elevated as I discovered lands rich with love, rich in gold, great in power and full of good morals — and hot with a blazing sun.